


coincidence and fate

by smudgesofink



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Four-man Team 7, F/M, Hatake Kakashi accidentally adopts a child, Hatake Kakashi-centric, I Don't Even Know, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, In which the system is hinted to be fucked up, Parent Hatake Kakashi, Team 7 as a Family - Freeform, Why Did I Write This?, and said child teaches Gaara to stop murdering people, in the first few chapters, sand siblings - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2020-02-04 13:24:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 55,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18605410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smudgesofink/pseuds/smudgesofink
Summary: "What's your name?" Kakashi asks again, quieter this time. He lets his question hang, lets her look at him with his mask pulled down and his face void of any sort of facade. She's five, for goodness' sake, Kakashi thinks. She deserves honesty at the very least."Katana," the child says after an eternity of silence. "My name is Katana."In which there is a child, with grey eyes and her mother's smile and like most stories, sometimes a child is all it takes.





	1. Coincidence

**Author's Note:**

> Me: *currently on vacation, knows that she can start writing new stuff again*  
> Also Me: *completely ignores this fact, digs up 9 years worth of writing garbage and dusts it off*
> 
> This fic is originally entitled "Destiny of the Cursed" in fanfiction.net and it's posted as the very first fanfiction I had ever written way back when I was 12. I decided to edit it (like really, really edit it) and repost it here. I don't know why I'm doing this. Don't ask me.

Like how most stories begin, there is once a child, with grey eyes and her mother's smile.

There is once a child, with a sword and a curse, and a village full of people who fear what they do not understand.

There is once a child and like most stories, sometimes a child is all it takes.

There is once a child.

And the world burns to the ground.

 

. . .

 

Hatake Kakashi returns to Konoha on a Tuesday afternoon after a particularly grueling ANBU mission, and thinks of how his father died.

There are still dried flecks of blood underneath his fingernails even as Kakashi reports at the Hokage’s office, and the stench of burning flesh has caught on to his uniform, judging by the way the other shinobi inside the office keep glancing at him in mild disgust. It should be funny, Kakashi thinks, how people become so uncomfortable with the little reminders of death, and yet so unfazed when in the middle of it.

Like how his father’s teammates—the ones Sakumo had saved personally, had risked his life and reputation on—had looked down on his father’s corpse with little more than a frown, but refused to look at all once Sakumo had been inside a coffin. Or how he could stand to pick up his sensei’s lifeless body in the aftermath of the Nine Tail’s attack but still can’t seem to bring himself to meet the blonde child who was left behind in the wake of the destruction.

It should be funny, except it isn’t funny at all.

“—assume everything went well?”

Kakashi blinks away the thought. The Third Hokage is looking at him expectantly, the way he does, the way everyone always does when it’s Kakashi they’re looking at. Blankly, Kakashi nods. “Yes, Hokage-sama. Everything went to plan.”

“And the mercenaries?”

“All taken care of, Hokage-sama.”

Kakashi thinks of how his father died a bloody mess, with his body curled around himself even after death, as if still in pain. He thinks of the empty ache inside of himself and wonders whether it’s the same pain that made his father commit suicide. Wonders whether he’s likely to die in the same way, in the same bloody manner, and whether people would look at his corpse the way they had looked at his father’s body—without a care in the world and with little more than a mindless frown, but perhaps with just a bit more disappointment.

“Alright, then. I won’t keep you longer.” The Third gives him a proud, meaningless smile, and dismisses him with a tilt of his head. “Off you go, until the next mission.”

“Yes, Hokage-sama.”

 _Rinse,_ Kakashi thinks, putting thoughts of his father out of his mind for now. He walks out of the office with soundless steps, leaving behind the stench of death. The others grimace after him.

_...and repeat._

. . .

 

The travel back to his apartment is quiet, with the sun just about to disappear from the horizon and the breeze cold enough to sting. Behind him, the noise of the village starts to fade as the vendors close their shops one by one and the people return to their houses.  _A shower would be nice_ , Kakashi muses, exhaustion clinging to his bones like a second skin.  _A shower and a year-long nap._

In the middle of the road, Kakashi hums an old, forgotten lullaby under his breath and the trees embrace the sound.

For a moment, everything is blessedly silent.

And then in his next step, the air drowns with the scent of blood, thick enough to suffocate. From a distance, chakra spikes up and spreads like a dam breaking. The forest crackles with the energy surge, trees exploding not too far away from where Kakashi stands.

_What the hell?_

Kakashi barely thinks twice as he brandishes a kunai, opening a summoning scroll and slicing his finger open to bleed on its surface. There’s a puff of smoke, and then a small dog appears, immediately recoiling from the stench. “Pakkun!”

“Kakashi—what the hell?” Pakkun echoes his thoughts perfectly and takes a reflexive step back, the dog’s ears flattening against his head in alarm. “ _What is that?_ ”

“I don’t know,” Kakashi admits. Something that strong shouldn’t have made it pass the border, at least not without causing an uproar. More importantly, something that strong shouldn’t have been able to creep up on him like it did. Another group of trees explode, edging closer to where he is with each passing second. “No time,” he tells Pakkun, pushing his ANBU mask down. His left eye stings as it turns swirling red and black. “The Hokage’s Office. Go.”

“Get backup, boss!” Pakkun barks at him.

“I’ve got this. Go, now!”

Kakashi doesn’t wait for Pakkun to leave. He runs into the forest, to where his Sharingan can see the chakra bleeding out the most, staining the air black like a virus and spreading like it has a mind of its own. It’s a disturbing sight to behold. Kakashi searches his brain for a jutsu, a seal, anything at all that might begin to explain this, and comes up empty.

With a quick set of hand seals, he gathers electricity in his palm as he runs, and lets it shape itself into a knife. The source of the chakra is getting closer, hidden behind the thick foliage. The Sharingan makes out the vaguest shape in the middle of the murky energy but that’s all Kakashi needs.

He leaps up with his arm pulled back, ready to strike—

—and his heart stops at what he sees.

“NO!”

Kakashi misses his target by the barest of inches and lets his fist collide against wood, sending splinters flying everywhere as a tree snaps into pieces. Another scream, and his ears ring with the explosion. Breathing heavily, Kakashi blinks slow and braces himself, turning to prove what he saw.

A child stares back at him, shaking with the force of her tears.

 _What the hell,_ Kakashi asks, not for the first time. A quick sweep of the forest confirms that there are no other people save for the two of them. Thoughtlessly, he raises his hand to break the genjutsu—there has to be a genjutsu, _there has to be_ —and the girl in front of him flinches.

“Kai—"

The tree beside him explodes.

“Go away!” The child shouts brokenly as Kakashi covers his head out of instinct.

When he glances back, the same sight welcomes him. There is no illusion broken, no genjutsu casted. Kakashi is almost tempted to do the hand seal again out of pure disbelief, but his Sharingan has never lied to him before. The chakra around her is dark, heavy and vibrating with power--something that shouldn’t have been possible for a small girl to carry.

 _A host_ , he thinks immediately but it doesn’t make sense. A jinchuuriki on the run would have sent everyone into chaos, and the villages would have heard of the news beforehand.  _A spy, then,_ Kakashi settles despite the bitter aftertaste of the word in his mind. The kid looks like she’s only about four or so, but then again, there is no such thing as too young in the shinobi world.

Kakashi himself had only been six when he first killed a man.

He takes a step forward with the kunai in his grip, intent on getting answers no matter what, but the child crawls away from him instead, staring at him with wide eyes.

“No,” she says as her eyes start watering. She sounds like she’s been screaming for days. Her tiny body shakes, and Kakashi realizes a little late that she’s bleeding everywhere, open wounds littering her dark skin. “Stop it.”

She scoots backwards clumsily, holding onto a sheathed weapon that’s clearly too big for her. _A sword_ , Kakashi takes note as he follows her with another step, sending her stumbling away from him. “D-Don’t!” Another tree explodes, somewhere far away this time, and the child swallows back a sob. Something uneasy lurches in Kakashi’s gut, forcing him to pause in his steps.

 _She can’t control it,_ Kakashi thinks, and on hindsight, it should have been obvious. The tears and the way she shouts herself hoarse should have been a dead giveaway but in his defense, there’s never been a situation like this before.

“Alright,” Kakashi grounds out, more to himself than to the girl.

There’s no protocol for something like this, but even that does not change the fact that Kakashi is ANBU and the child, for all intents and purposes, is a trespasser with enough power to take out a whole squad of jounin. The best course of action would be to knock her unconscious, at least until they have her contained and ready for questioning, but Kakashi can’t imagine doing that without much bloodshed. If it comes down to it, he might end up killing her. Kakashi clenches his jaw, swallows down the stone in his throat. “Alright, what—”

“N-No,” the girl chokes out.

She shakes her head defiantly at him, even as fat tears well up and run down the sides of her bruised face. Kakashi watches as she pushes herself up on unsteady legs, knees skinned and busted, using the sword support herself. The child takes a shuddering breath and tries to stare him down, lower lip trembling.

“No,” she tells him again despite the painful way her voice cracks, and there’s something desperate in her expression, something angry and wild and—

 _Afraid_.

Kakashi stops.

Takes a measured breath and steels himself but the way his grip slowly loosens around the kunai betrays him.

He can’t do it.

Years of shinobi training and countless bloodbaths, and he can’t kill a one kid.

“Okay,” Kakashi tells her even as his brain refuses to accept his decision because there has to be a trick somewhere. There has to be a catch. He’s going to regret this, he knows it. “Okay.”

This time, when Kakashi lifts up a hand, he does so carefully, breaking at least fifteen rules as takes off his ANBU mask. The Sharingan fades away as he shows most of his face. Kakashi holds his breath steady as the girl hiccups, staring at his eyes, and he meets her gaze as he crouches to her level.

“Look,” Kakashi says, voice hushed. He holds his palms up, open in front of him, and throws the kunai to his side. It hits the ground with a dull thud, far away from him. The girl swallows, glancing at the discarded weapon. “See? It’s okay.”

The girl glares through her tears and takes an angry breath, watching him.

It feels like an eternity of waiting but Kakashi stays where he is with his hands open, staring back into the child’s grey eyes. Slowly, Kakashi could feel the chakra in the air fading away, dispersing little by little. The forest around them grows quiet once more. “It’s okay,” he says again, nodding as the chakra around her begins to disappear as well. “It’s okay.”

He waits for the other shoe to drop, for the child to turn into something monstrous in a snap but no such thing happens. Instead, the kid in front of him inhales shakily. “Okay,” she echoes in a whisper, so soft that Kakashi has to strain his ears to hear it. There are still tears caught up in her eyelashes, and she blinks them away. Her lip wobbles. “Don’t hurt me.”

“I’m not going to.”

The girl nods jerkily, and then coughs, once, twice, and then there’s blood, spurting out of her mouth in rivers, dribbling down her chin as her eyes clamp shut in agony, and she’s bleeding everywhere, pitching forward in a speed that could crack her skull open—

—and Kakashi catches her, seconds before she hits the ground. Blood soaks through his gloves and stains his uniform a fresh crimson. In his arms, she feels smaller than she looked, limp and barely weighing anything at all if not for the sword she has with her. Kakashi takes a sharp breath, willing his heart to slow. Not too far away, he thinks he could hear footsteps and Pakkun’s voice. They’re close, but waiting for them begs for time that Kakashi doesn’t think the kid can afford, not at the pace in which she’s bleeding out on him.

There’s no catch to all of it. She’s just a child.

“Fuck,” Kakashi swears under his breath, regretting everything anyway, and doesn’t think anything else as he runs.  _She’s just a child._

 

. . .

 

He brings her to the hospital and creates a contained panic among the staff as he stands in all his battlefield glory, reeking of fresh blood with a child in his hands. Other patients gawk at him. The mothers present in the hallways are horrified, the doctors pale-faced as they take over. They whisk her away from him and into a room, and tell him to sit down and wait. 

Kakashi sits down looking at the crimson in his hands, and thinks of how his father died.

Thinks of the once empty ache in his chest that’s now replaced with the anxious drum of his heart. He hasn’t felt that in a while.

Kakashi thinks of how his father died, and he hopes this child won’t.

Kakashi sits, and he waits. 


	2. Baby steps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Did they follow you?”
> 
> He leans forward a little, movements kept slow and predictable so as not to startle the child. Kakashi looks at the girl’s eyes, wide and broken and grey, and holds his breath as she opens her mouth.
> 
> “No,” she whispers. “They’re dead.”

The walls will haunt him to his grave.

If not that, then the woman glaring at him on his right definitely will.

Kakashi sits on a cold metal bench, and forces himself not to move as he waits, drumming his fingers against his knee. There is a reason he doesn’t usually willingly set foot in a hospital, unless manhandled inside or brought in unconscious. The walls are all bare, painted horrifyingly white, and the stench of antiseptics is somehow almost worse that the smell of the battlefield that clings to his skin. One wrong move, and he can almost see the blood from his uniform smearing against the walls like a morbid parody of oil on a canvas, painting everything red.

So he sits ramrod straight, with his hands on his lap and his fingers drumming soundlessly against his knee, and tries not to cause a mess. Determinedly, he doesn’t glance at the woman next to him either, no matter how hard she tries to drill a hole in his head with her eyes. It’s not his fault the kid bled all over him when he caught her.

It’s also not his fault that most people bleed when he catches them.

Kakashi looks to the closed door again, almost willing it to open with his glare. He’s not worried— _he’s not_ , he has no reason to be—but it’s been a while since the doctors have locked themselves inside with the kid, and Kakashi is itching with the need to know.

Hands clenching fistfuls of his pants, he lets out the barest of sighs.

Beside him, the woman sniffs in annoyance and gives him the stink eye.

Just as he was beginning to think of leaning back, white walls and grouchy women patients  _be damned_ , the door in front of him swings open and the medics exit one by one, murmuring among themselves as they walk. Kakashi stands, barely remembering to snatch up the sword he’s brought in along with the girl, and grabs one of them at random, leaving a bloody handprint on their sleeve.

“ANBU-san!” The medic gasps, clutching his chest at the sight of Kakashi.

“Yes, I know, it’s not my blood, don’t worry,” Kakashi recites impatiently with a wave of his hand, ignoring all the other doctors staring at the gory mess on his clothes. “How is she?”

“Stable now,” the medic answers, and then there’s the relief, washing over him like ice over his head. Kakashi feels himself breathe out after a long while of barely breathing at all, and he pushes the emotion down as it wells up inside him. “She’s regained consciousness, and we patched her up as best as we could. There seemed to be a lot of blood on her clothes but most of her wounds were surprisingly shallow. Only the ones on her arm needed stitches.”

“Shallow,” Kakashi repeats. The memory of the child, bruised and battered and coughing up blood, resurfaces in his mind. And then, he recalls the terrifying chakra she’s got packed in her small frame, volatile enough to make trees explode. “Right, of course. Can I see her now?”

“Yes, but ANBU-san—“

“Alright, thanks.”

Kakashi bypasses him, striding quickly to the door to avoid the question, and suppresses a sigh when a hand pulls him back by the forearm before he could turn the knob. Really, no one can take a hint around here, can they? He turns around with all the politeness he can muster up, which is to say, severely lacking, if any at all. “What, medic-san?”

“ANBU-san,” the doctor begins, grave and uncertain, “when we were treating her, she—the child has this thing—“

“Just spit it out, doc.”

“Does she have a _kekkei genkai_?”

Kakashi blinks. “What?”

“A-A _kekkei genkai_ ,” the medic stutters, wringing his hands. There’s an edge of worry in his voice. “A bloodline limit, s-something from a clan or, or—“

“I know what a _kekkei genkai_ is,” Kakashi cuts in, grimacing. “Why do you think she has one?”

“Her eyes,” the medic says. “They kept changing colors. It turned from grey to black, and then grey again, but I swear I saw it flash gold once and it’s just,” the man stops, shaking his head as if to clear the memory. “It’s just all very unusual.”

“Ah.” Kakashi’s hand twitches just the slightest by his side. He’s heard of eyes turning black before and it hasn’t been anything good. Turning gold, on the other hand...he doesn’t even know what that could mean but already, he can imagine it spreading like wildfire the way all rumors do, can imagine this lost, wounded girl in the place of a blue-eyed boy who looks too much like his old sensei and how the people would whisper.

Kakashi grabs the man’s hand and plucks it away from him. “Medic-san,” he says in a measured tone, “it must’ve been a trick of the light. Are you tired? You look tired.”

“W-What?” The doctor startles, eyes wide at Kakashi. “B-But—“

“You should rest, doctor.”

“B-but the girl—!”

“Like I said,” Kakashi murmurs, stopping to look at the doctor in the eye. The medic before him freezes. “Must be a trick of the light. Right, medic-san?”

“R-Right.”

“Okay.”

Kakashi twists the knob open, stepping inside the room. He pauses and, in a moment of sick temptation—just sick enough to really drive the point across, Kakashi tells himself—turns around to smile at the doctor, eyes crinkling in ominous glee and blood drying on his skin. The medic squeaks in fear.

“Take care now.” Kakashi winks and shuts the door with a satisfying thud.

 

. . .

 

The child is staring at empty air when Kakashi enters.

Hollow-eyed and lost, she looks as if she’s gone through so much in so little time. Kakashi knows it all too well, finds the haunted emptiness in her gaze so familiar, it’s as if he’s looking at his own through a mirror. There are purple bruises blooming on her face, making a trail down her neck and barely hidden by the ridiculous length of hair she has curtaining over her back, and the fabric of her clothes is singed at the hem, sleeves torn beyond saving, bandages everywhere.

Kakashi doesn’t know where to even begin.

When she finally looks up to where he stands, her eyes are grey—not black, not gold—fall immediately to the sword he has in his grip. She blinks, trance broken, and sucks in a breath, sitting up to bow her head properly.

“Thank you,” she says, and Kakashi lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. It’s the first time she’s not yelling at him and her voice is shot to all hell, barely louder than a painful crackle, but the kid is breathing and alive and Kakashi has too many things lodged up in his chest for someone who shouldn’t care. The child looks up, looks down where he’s still holding the sword—her sword?—and then looks back up at him.

“You saved it,” she says. “That’s my mother’s,” is what she says next, and then urgently, desperately, “Can I have it back? I promise not to use it.”

And Kakashi—trained ANBU operative, jounin at six, child genius whose life has only ever been held together by strings and rules and tragedies and nothing more—breaks at least ten more laws and most of his training as he walks toward the bed and tells her, “I wasn’t worried about that.”

The girl could just as easily kill him, sword or no, he knows, but somehow he’s not worried about that either.

He hands over the weapon once he’s just a foot away. It’s heavy in his grip, enough that it’ll probably be a struggle for the girl to hold but she takes it anyway and Kakashi lets her, watching closely as the kid uses both hands to pull it away from him. She cradles the sword against herself, like any child would a teddy bear, and her shoulders sag with the motion. Like this, she looks painfully small, body dwarfed by weapon in her arms and the exhaustion that clings to her bones.

“You’re not one of them.” There are tears forming in the corners of her eyes when Kakashi looks. She blinks them away before he can say anything and sniffs, ducking her head out of view so her hair falls to cover her face. “You’re not one of them, right?”

Kakashi doesn’t know who _they_ are but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that whoever she means must be the ones that had her bleeding within an inch of her life when Kakashi found her. He shakes his head, dropping down to the chair next to her bed. “No, I’m not.”

“Okay.” The child clutches the sword closer to her body, as if willing it to disappear into her and hide her away. “They had masks, too.”

At the words, something cold and dreadful coils tight in the pit of his gut like snakes had slitered down his throat and taken residence within him. It takes most of Kakashi’s remaining energy not to break his calm façade. “Masks,” he purses his lips, digging fingers into gloved palms. “Like the one I had earlier?”

“Yes.” The girl nods weakly. “With the animal face.”

The snakes inside him thrash, strangling each other, and Kakashi’s mind reels just as violently as his stomach does.

ANBU. ANBU are after her.

From which village, for what purpose, Kakashi doesn’t know. Whether or not they would be willing to commit an international incident to get the girl isn’t something he knows either. There are suddenly too many questions and too many risks, too many things to consider, none of them good. He settles for the easiest one he could pin down in the midst of all the warning bells ringing in his head all at once, and Kakashi waits for the girl to raise her head.

“Did they follow you?”

He leans forward a little, movements kept slow and predictable so as not to startle the child. Kakashi looks at the girl’s eyes, wide and broken and grey, and holds his breath as she opens her mouth.

“No,” she whispers. “They’re dead.”

The chaos in his head comes to a screeching halt. Kakashi frowns. “Who killed them?”

The child blinks, and Kakashi sees it.

Her eyes flash black gold _black gold_ ** _black_** — _as the shadows that lurk in the corners and stain the air with darkness like a yawning void that devours the stars and the light and **gold** —like lightning like blood like an ancient power that rots and festers and hungers for more more more until insanity takes over and it sees through his skin through flesh through bone into his soul—and Kakashi is frozen with fear he has never known before, hand twitching helplessly for a kunai for protection for air—_

—and then she jerks back violently like she’s been electrocuted, a wet gasp crawling out of her throat and into the space between them, blinking tears away, and her eyes are grey. Kakashi chokes down his panic and forces himself to _breathe_.

“That killed them,” the child croaks out. She falls back against the bed frame, terrified, shaking, perhaps just as rattled as he feels. Her hands are trembling around the sword she holds and her eyes are grey again. “That happened and when I woke up, they were dead.”

Kakashi’s lungs inhale in stutters, and he slumps back against his chair with all the grace of a rag doll. All at once, he is suddenly too tired to even begin to process that and too restless to truly stop thinking about it. Black and gold haunt his mind. He can already hear the rumors bringing themselves to life.

“Alright, let’s—“ he clears his throat and his voice breaks, failing him, “let’s just calm down.”

Those ANBU never stood a chance.

On hindsight, he never did either.

 

. . .

 

Kakashi only stands up from his seat when they inevitably come for him, wearing porcelain masks painted with animal faces. The girl tenses by his side when his fellow ANBU show up in the room. She holds the sword in a death grip, and he turns to her before anyone can do something they might all regret.

“They’re friends,” Kakashi tells her, mustering up all the cheerfulness he could convey through his voice. “They’re here to watch over you while I’m gone. Isn’t that right?” He turns to the two shinobi, then—Boar and Monkey—and realizes what a sight he must make, face bare despite his ANBU uniform and looking like death incarnate. Kakashi can almost see them beneath their masks, behind their wordless silence, considering the possibility of _Sharingan no Kakashi_ finally losing his mind. He can’t exactly blame them if they do.

“Are you going to come back?”

The question breaks him away from his thoughts. He glances down, looks at the girl with dark skin and darker hair whose name Kakashi has failed to ask, who has her mother’s sword in her arms and an unknown power in her veins, who looks at him with eyes that are _blackgold_ grey, so piercing with their quiet desperation and weariness that it doesn’t take Kakashi another second to answer.

“Of course,” he says, betrayed by the soft edges in his voice that Kakashi chalks up to the day’s exhaustion. It feels like a promise and already, there’s a broken aftertaste of it in his mouth.  “I still don’t know your name, after all.” Kakashi doesn’t know what possesses him to do it but he summons Pakkun for the second time that day, only a little bit amused when the girl goes absolutely wide-eyed in wonder at the ninken.

Pakkun blinks back at her, and then turns to scowl at Kakashi. “Really?”

“Puppy,” the girl says, and when she looks at Kakashi, the trauma in her expression is gone for just a moment and she looks like the child she’s supposed to be. “It talks.”

“Yes, he does.”

Kakashi scoops Pakkun up from the floor, ignoring his grumbling, and dumps him on the hospital bed. The girl lifts a slow, hesitant hand for the dog and huffs out a weak noise of happiness when Pakkun butts his head against her palm. Despite everything, it makes Kakashi smile. He refuses to think of the consequences that may follow, already dutifully ignoring the pointed stares of the ANBU behind him. “I’ll be back for him, okay?”

“Okay.”

Kakashi breathes steadily through his dread and disappears in a blink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it took so long to update. I don't remember this fic being so difficult to write???
> 
>  
> 
> (also, can you tell that I'm a sucker for Kakashi feeling emotions other than pain and death?)


	3. Leap of Faith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even in the dead of night, Katana asks one last question, “Are you okay?”
> 
> And Kakashi—
> 
> Kakashi pulls down his mask and breathes in the stale air. Thinks of his father’s ghost and his mother’s laughter echoing in the hallways of the house they’re in. He looks at Katana then, at the sword lying by her side and the bear in her hands and her capacity to trust someone like Kakashi on a whim. Her capacity to trust anyone at all, after what had happened to her. The kid should know better.
> 
> “Yeah,” Kakashi says, and swallows back the bitter taste of a lie on his tongue. “I'm okay.”

Hatake Kakashi arrives at the Hokage’s office at night and delivers his report with a heaviness inside his chest that he refuses to acknowledge as worry.

Two hours later, he makes his way back to the hospital room and the heaviness is gone.

He feels hollow instead.

. . .

She’s asleep when Kakashi comes back, curled up against Pakkun and the sword she refuses to let go of. It’s quiet, peaceful almost, a stark contrast to the tension earlier but that isn’t what catches Kakashi’s attention.

What does are the seven other dogs scattered around the hospital bed like sentries, each looking up at him guiltily as he enters the room. Suddenly, Kakashi feels all the more tired. The ANBU have gone away, and Kakashi guesses it’s got something to do with the sight that now welcomes him. “Pakkun,” he scolds without looking up.

“What,” the _ninken_ shoots back, unapologetic. When Kakashi glares at him, Pakkun just glares back, huffing in defense, “They tried to take blood. She was freaking out.”

Kakashi frowns. “Did they? Hokage-sama didn’t mention anything about that.”

“Don’t think Hokage-sama tells you everything, boss.”

“I guess not.”

He sits down with a sigh, closing his eyes for a brief moment as he sinks into the uncomfortable plastic chair. The day’s events are catching up to him, all at once, and it seems like a fever dream. The dogs are staring at him, too. Kakashi groans.

“Go,” he tells them. “I’m here now, shoo.”

“Thanks, boss.”

“Have a good night.”

“Good luck with the kid!”

He can’t see their pity but it’s a close thing.

The _ninken_ all disappear with puffs of smoke. Kakashi turns to Pakkun then, the last one left, and watches as the dog carefully maneuvers himself out of the girl’s arms. “Did you learn anything about her?”

“She says she’s five,” Pakkun says, glancing at the kid. “Doesn't know what ice cream is, but knows how to hold a goddamn sword. Kid also said something ‘bout living in mountains in the sky.”

“The mountains in the sky,” Kakashi repeats dubiously before it dawns on him. “Kumogakure.”

Pakkun nods. “Thought so, too.”

“She mentioned ANBU coming after her. They may be from Kumo.”

“A wanted nin?” Pakkun looks at the girl, and then gawks at him. “At five years old?”

“I killed men at six.”

“Yeah, but she’s not you, boss.”

“No, she’s not,” Kakashi murmurs in agreement.  He remembers the shifting of her eyes, of black, gold, black, gold, and grey. The yawning darkness, the chill in his bones afterwards. “She’s something different entirely.”

“Maybe.” Pakkun shrugs. “But she’s a good kid. Traumatized as hell, though.”

Kakashi sighs once more. “Bye, Pakkun.”

“Night, boss.”

When Pakkun disappears, the silence that follows makes the hollow ache in Kakashi’s chest come back. He looks at the girl, feeling so horribly out of his depth that Kakashi has half a mind to call quits and walk out.

Walk away and forget that this kid has ever changed his life in the course of a day.

Instead, Kakashi takes a deep breath, takes most of his courage, and stays.

. . .

“Hatake Kakashi.”

She asks for his name when she wakes up, and then she asks other questions.

It’s 2 a.m.

Kakashi wants to sleep, wants to crawl home to bed and die there, but the girl is an interesting little thing when curious, this child with dark hair and changing grey eyes. Soft-spoken but insistent, and so obviously desperate to figure out what’s going on around her. The hospital is quiet—so are the ANBU by the door outside—but both of them are all too awake despite their combined exhaustion and both of them are alive for yet another day.

So Kakashi talks to the kid instead, humors her with whispered answers to her whispered questions. She asks how old he is— _“Twenty,” he tells her, and she wrinkles her face. Kakashi almost snorts—_ and where he lives, and what his favorite food is, and if Pakkun is his dog, and why does he have so many dogs?

He answers all of them.

Finally, she asks, “Why do you wear a mask?”

“It’s because I’m very ugly,” Kakashi answers without missing a beat. “I look horrible. Like a troll.”

“Oh.” The child ponders over it, staring at him. Her tiny fingers fuss over the sheath of the sword. “Can I see?”

“Hm?”

“Your face,” she tells him, “can I see it?”

“I told you,” he says, “I’m very ugly.” And then, he asks, “Why do you want to see my face anyway?”

The girl shrugs jerkily, looking down. She fusses with the sword again and purses her lips. “People are very honest when they show their faces.”

“Ah.”

His father had mentioned a similar thing once, back when he had still been alive and Kakashi had still felt at home in his own skin. Said _Kakashi, your face is so honest, dear boy._ Said _Kakashi, you’ve got your mother’s smile._ Said it all with a sad grin on his face that Kakashi had decided he hated, and the very next day, Kakashi had dug out a mask from his father’s closet and worn it ever since.

He shakes away the memory.

“Tell you what,” Kakashi says, breaking the silence. “If you get to see my face, I get to know your name. Sound okay?”

The child looks up with a grimace. She pulls the sword in closer. “I have an ugly name,” she says.

Kakashi raises an eyebrow. “Says who?”

“Says Father,” the girl whispers, and Kakashi’s heart doesn’t break. It doesn’t. “He says my name is awful.”

“Maybe he’s wrong,” he says. “What’s your name?”

The girl shakes her head.

“Okay.” Kakashi pulls his mask down. He takes in a breath, a lungful of cold air that stings and makes his eyes damn near water, and watches as the child studies him quietly in steady blinks. For a moment, Kakashi feels the most honest he’s ever been in a long time, with his face bared out in the open like this.

“You’re not ugly,” the girl says finally, and she sounds disappointed.

Kakashi’s mouth pulls into a smile. His mother’s smile, Sakumo had said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

"What's your name?" Kakashi asks again, quieter this time. He lets his question hang, lets her look at him with his mask pulled down and his face void of any sort of facade.  _She's five, for goodness' sake_ , Kakashi thinks.  _She deserves sincerity at the very least._

"Katana," the child says after a moment. "My name is Katana."

"Like your mother’s sword," Kakashi realizes, looking down at the weapon she's clutching in her small arms. He thinks of how heavy of a burden it is, to have something of your mother but not have her in her entirety—as if someone’s ghost could ever be enough of a substitute for the real thing. “Your father is wrong.”

The girl—Katana—blinks up at him in question. Kakashi meets her eyes head on.

“It’s not an ugly name.”

“Oh,” Katana says softly. “Thank you.”

Kakashi nods. “You’re welcome.”

The silence stretches on, and Katana goes back to sleep.

. . .

They leave the hospital in the daytime.

Kakashi settles the hospital bills as they gear up to exit—pays extra and slips in the Hokage’s handwritten note in place of the necessary documents—and every so often, he glances at Katana. The girl is silent, subdued as she waits for him to finish, with her mother’s sword inside her embrace and bandages around her arms. If she notices the countless stares sent her way, she doesn’t make it obvious. Neither does Kakashi as he strides towards her. They make quite a pair, the two of them.

The thing is, Kakashi has never taken care of anyone before, let alone a child.

He barely takes care of himself.

So when he stands in front of Katana and the girl looks up at him in question, as if to say _what now?,_ Kakashi thinks of his sorry excuse for an apartment, thinks of his threadbare futon and the sad empty fridge that he barely uses.

And Kakashi makes a snap decision.

“Come on.”

Katana is quick to follow, with another question on her lips, “Where are we going?”

“All over the place.”

They go to the market to buy produce, and then to the stores downtown where Kakashi buys two new futons and a broom and a few kid’s clothes (and a teddy bear behind a store’s glass windows that Katana had been eyeing wistfully from the across the street), and then a quick stop at Ichiraku for lunch before resuming the search for a decent couch. The people stare at them, at Kakashi and this strange child with a sword and a stuffed toy, holding his hand as they walk in from store to store like mad men, and Kakashi ignores them all.

When dusk falls, they walk a familiar path down the road that leads to an old estate. The trees are overgrown and the shrubs have become shapeless with time but Kakashi trudges on, Katana right by his heels. Slowly, the Hatake clan house comes into view, and Kakashi juggles all the bags he’s holding to pull out a set of rusty keys.

“ _Tadaima._ ”

Katana glances up at him, and repeats, “ _Tadaima._ ”

. . .

Despite his weariness, Kakashi doesn’t sleep. He can’t bring himself to, not when his futon lays on the same floorboards his father’s blood had soaked through. The air is musty with dust, the corners softened with cobwebs. The house echoes of old ghosts and tragedies and Kakashi can’t sleep.

“Hatake-san?”

He looks down. Next to him, Katana is cocooned in her futon with her tired eyes open.

“What is it?”

Even in the dead of night, Katana asks one last question, “Are you okay?”

And Kakashi—

Kakashi pulls down his mask and breathes in the stale air. Thinks of his father’s ghost and his mother’s laughter echoing in the hallways of the house they’re in. He looks at Katana then, at the sword lying by her side and the bear in her hands and her capacity to trust someone like Kakashi on a whim. Her capacity to trust anyone at all, after what had happened to her. The kid should know better.

“Yeah,” Kakashi says, and swallows back the bitter taste of a lie on his tongue. “I'm okay.”

. . .

_“What about the child, Hokage-sama?”_

_“Hm? Well, she’s staying with you, of course.”_

_“I…I can’t take care of a kid—“_

_“She trusts you, doesn’t she?”_

_“…Yes.”_

_“Then she’s your next mission until I say otherwise. Learn all that you can about her and report it to me. S-class, Hound-san.”_

_“Yes, Hokage-sama.”_

_"We'll find where she belongs in this village soon enough. She'll be out of your hands in no time."_

_"...Yes, Hokage-sama."_

_“Good.” The Hokage smiles, and something inside Kakashi breaks. “You’re dismissed.”_


	4. Kakashi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hatake-san, can I help?”
> 
> Kakashi turns to see Katana standing by the doorway. She has her battlefield expression on her face, as if preparing for war, but her eyes remain honest with their uncertainty. Despite everything that’s happened, it makes Kakashi smile.
> 
> “Of course.”
> 
> “I promise not to—“
> 
> “I know,” Kakashi tells her. He says it with all the sincerity he can muster. “I trust you.”

_5 days_

She calls him Hatake-san.

Bows to him in greeting and walks around the Hatake compound with not-quite-there footsteps like a little ghost girl, as if the house isn’t haunted enough given its history. Katana barely talks some days. Other times, she asks endless questions about endless things—the way any 5 year-old would, Kakashi muses—but most times, he watches her pick a corner of the house and stay there until the night.

Katana follows quickly when called and clams up at random without warning.

It’s as if the kid has been trained to not exist.

He asks her once if she wants to come outside with him and the kid all but scrambles to stand up, a flicker of light sparking in her eyes.

“Can I?” She asks hesitantly. “I promise not to be a bother.”

Kakashi glances at her. “You’re not a bother, Katana.”

“Oh.” Her lip wobbles when she nods, and Kakashi catches the watery shine of her eyes. He tries not to feel anything about it. “Okay.”

“Come on.”

He buys her first ice cream cone that day.

 

_12 days_

She still calls him Hatake-san.

She calls him this insistently as she wakes him up from a fitful sort of sleep--the only kind of sleep Kakashi could get nowadays, what with the creaks and moans of the house and the echoes of what was lost—and it’s an endless annoying hiss of “Hatake-san, Hatake-san, Hatake-san” until Kakashi forces open his mismatched eyes.

“What, Katana?”

Katana mumbles something inaudible, eyes wide.

Kakashi blinks slowly. “What?”

“There’s someone outside,” she repeats, alarmed. “They’re…loud.”

Kakashi strains his ears to hear. Not a second later, he’s groaning at the familiar voice calling out for him, sickeningly energetic as always. It’s times like this that he wants so badly to swear, regardless of Katana’s presence. “That’s Gai.”

“Who’s Gai?”

Kakashi stands up from his futon and beckons for Katana to follow him as he walks out of his room and mournfully towards the door and the man yelling behind it.

“My rival!” Gai yells when the door swings open and immediately, Kakashi wants to shut it in his face. Kakashi hasn’t even brushed his hair yet. The man is wearing his bright green body suit as always and clutching an enormous, equally green—

“Is that a turtle?”

Gai looks down at the stuffed toy, looks back up at Kakashi with a blinding grin. “Why yes! For the little lady!” He crouches down then and Kakashi’s eyes follow to where Katana is hiding behind his leg, peeking up curiously at his fellow jounin. “Hello, my dear.”

“Hello,” Katana greets, unprompted, and to Kakashi’s surprise, doesn’t attempt to bow at all. She tilts her head in question. “Who are you?”

Gai grins. “I’m your godfather.”

“What’s a godfather?”

“Nothing,” Kakashi interjects smoothly. “He’s nothing. Why don’t you take the stuffed turtle and go inside, Katana?”

“Okay.”

They watch as she picks up the toy from Gai’s offered hand with an uncharacteristic smile growing on her face. It’s the happiest Kakashi’s seen her in two weeks, and something inside him aches at the realization.

“Kakashi! My eternal rival! My youthful, yet dispassionate fellow—“

“Keep it down,” Kakashi sighs, pulling Gai inside even with his eyes still on Katana. “People are still sleeping.”

“So it’s true, then? Is this why you moved from your apartment?” Gai gasps in a theatrical whisper, scandalized. He turns to Katana’s retreating back before glaring at Kakashi. “You have a child!”

“Well, you can see her, can’t you?”

“Where’s the mother, Kakashi? Is she here? Will I finally meet your heart’s true blossom—“

“There’s no mother,” Kakashi grouches. “I—“

“You’ve separated?” Gai’s voice takes on a grave note. “I understand, dear rival—“

“She’s not mine,” Kakashi finally says. “I found her.”

Gai blinks rapidly. “You—you found her?”

“By the forest border. The kid is…different. She’s assigned to me right now as a mission. That’s all it is.”

“Ah.” Gai nods, humming in thought. He claps Kakashi on the shoulder. “You see, that makes much more sense.”

 “You’re ridiculous.” Kakashi shakes his head and beelines to the kitchen.

He dutifully ignores the other man’s noisy introduction to his charge as Gai barges in further into the house. With another person around—and given that the person is _Maito Gai_ —the compound suddenly doesn’t seem as empty as it usually is. He can hear the sounds of chatter, of Katana’s soft answers and Gai’s boisterous storytelling. After a minute, Kakashi hears the kid laugh.

Kakashi breathes in, breathes out, and the ghosts haunting him quiet down.

For a moment, he can pretend like everything’s okay. Like he and Katana aren’t two broken pieces forced together to form a ticking bomb, like Kakashi isn’t spending every waking moment afraid that he’s doing everything all wrong. For a moment, he even thinks he can join the two of them.

“And what’s your name, little one?”

“Katana. What’s your name?”

“Maito Gai! The greatest Green Beast of Konohagakure!”

Kakashi’s eyes roll heavenward. He decides he’ll join them much later.

 

_13 days_

Asuma, Kurenai and Anko, along with a new chuunin named Umino Iruka drop by. They bring kid’s clothes and fresh fruits and more toys than Katana can hold in her arms and Kakashi knows what to do with.

“Thank you,” Katana tells them, ever polite, and when she bows, Kakashi swears he hears Kurenai coo. “Who are you?”

Asuma leans down with a grin. “I’m your godfather.”

“What’s a—“

“Tell Gai I’ll beat his ass next time I see him,” Kakashi interrupts with a deadly smile as he reaches for the second fruit basket in Umino’s hands. Anko cackles.

“Uh,” Umino Iruka stutters with an awkward laugh. “Sure? Good luck to you and Katana-chan, Kakashi-san.”

 

_45 days_

He calls her Katana.

Not that he calls on her that much, despite the fact that they’re the only ones in the big house. Hatake-san mainly calls her for meals, or when he wants to go out and can’t leave Katana by herself, or when he’s got something new to ask of her.

Katana doesn’t know a lot about Hatake-san yet. She knows his favorite food is miso soup with eggplant. She knows he’s very old, and that he has eight dogs he can call on— _“They’re summons”,_ Hatake-san had explained and then very helpfully showed her how with a long scroll and a bit of blood; when Katana had asked quietly if she can summon them, too, Hatake-san had been kind enough to let her sign her blood print next to his—and that sometimes, Hatake-san can’t sleep, so he goes and sits on the deck outside and pretends to talk to his father.

Katana knows that Hatake-san is sad.

She knows the way sadness looks, the way sadness reflects on one’s eyes, the way sadness feels like a rock inside one’s chest, heavy with each breath. Her father has always been sad, Katana thinks, whenever she had the rare chance to see him.

(Lately, Katana has been feeling sad, too. Maybe it’s genetic—she learned that word from Pakkun.

But mostly, Katana is tired. The bad dreams have become black or gold or red, like blood, like pain, like dying, and sleep doesn’t come to her as easy as it did before she got sick. There is a voice inside of her that won’t stop whispering and it keeps telling her things she doesn’t want to hear.

Like how Hatake-san had told Gai-san that she was just a mission, and Katana knows that a mission means a job.

And sooner or later, a job gets done.)

So Katana keeps silent. Stays out of Hatake-san’s way and pretends to be fine. Tries not to bother him too much with silly things like needing help to open the jar or not having enough sleep or having bad dreams about black and gold and people dying, because he might get sick of her like her most people do. Like her father did.

Katana follows when called and bows in greeting and says “Hatake-san” when calling him.

One time, she had slipped up and called him Kakashi-san. It made him smile behind his mask.

Katana wonders if she should call him that instead.

 

_88 days_

“Hatake-san.”

“Hm?”

It takes her until late afternoon to voice out her restlessness. Kakashi has been waiting for it all day, has been waiting for it ever since Katana started the morning fidgeting over breakfast and staring at him wordlessly across the table. When Katana finally calls his attention, it takes most of Kakashi’s willpower not to drop the kunai he’s cleaning out of sheer relief as he turns to where Katana is standing in the doorway.

She’s clutching her sword—held firm and proper, Kakashi notes—her expression stubbornly determined. She’s wearing dark clothes too, the ones she had before Kurenai and the others had given her nice ones, and her shoes from Kumo, and her hands are all wrapped up. The kid looks ready for battle.

(Kakashi resigns himself to agreement before the girl even asks.)

“Hatake-san,” Katana begins, “Will you allow me to practice?”

…

They’re the only ones at the training grounds when they get there.

It’s cold out, the wind too strong for any sort of decent training but Katana doesn’t seem to mind as she stands in the middle of a clearing, holds the sword in front of her, and takes a stance. “Hatake-san,” Katana says, and it’s only then that Kakashi understands what she meant in the first place.

“You want to spar?”

Katana nods, pausing to add, “Please.”

Kakashi figures he’d humor her—he takes out a kunai using the barest amount of effort he can get away with, and gestures for Katana to start. The girl charges, and Kakashi regrets his earlier decision because Katana takes no prisoners and aims for the head.

…

Later, when Katana is slumped down on the grass heaving and he sits across her pretending not to be out of breath, Kakashi tries to process all the new things he’s learned about her at once.

_Trained at kenjutsu,_ he thinks, glancing at the tired kid incredulously. _The sword is new—she’s still adjusting. Good taijutsu skills for her age. Needs a little work on aiming and throwing a kunai. Otherwise rather vicious at sparring. Definitely a shinobi._

Her eyes apparently don’t need to change color—Katana fights like a little monster anyway, sword swinging with deadly precision and her kicks swift and unforgiving. The kid doesn’t pull any punches.

“Were you an Academy student?” Kakashi asks her. “Back in your old village?”

“No,” Katana says, shaking her head. She’s drenched in sweat, unsteady with physical exhaustion. The hand around her sword is quivering. Immediately, Kakashi feels like an idiot—he should have stopped the sparring session sooner. “I was teached at home.”

“You were taught at home.”

“I was taught at home.”

“By your father?” Kakashi asks next, and Katana’s face visibly falls.

“No,” she answers, voice too carefully neutral. “He was too busy.”

Kakashi nods apologetically. “Your mother then?”

Katana thins her lips. “She’s dead,” she says, and Kakashi wants to stab himself with the kunai.

_Don’t bring up her parents. Never bring up parents,_ he thinks as he stands, walking over to where the kid is sitting so he can pull Katana up. She goes with him without a single complaint about bruised arms or aching muscles even though her knees are still shaking, and Kakashi realizes that she’s used to this, used to being pushed to her limit and then stopping just short of breaking.

“You did good today, Katana-chan,” Kakashi says and it surprises him how sincerely he means it. He places a gentle pat on her head that has her looking up at him. “But next time, we’ll take a break in between sparring. An ice cream break. Sound good?”

Katana stares at him, wide-eyed, before breaking into a slow smile. Kakashi doesn’t smile back. He doesn’t.

“Thank you, Kakashi-san.”

 

_103 days_

Their luck runs out, slowly but eventually.

Slowly, the lack of sleep catches up.

Slowly, the ghosts of his past overtake Kakashi.

Slowly, the bad days arrive.

Eventually, there are no more good days left to anchor them.

_109 days_

Kakashi dreams of death—of Sakumo’s clothes soaked with his own blood in his last moments, of Rin’s tears dripping down her chin as she dies right before his eyes. He wakes up with the taste of bile in his mouth and his covers suffocating him. Kakashi shoves them off with shaky hands, grabbing for the kunai he has underneath his pillow and cutting himself.

Pain blooms on the pad of his finger.

(He will never admit it but the pain makes him breathe easier sometimes.)

Kakashi tries to summon Pakkun and fails.

Tries to summon Bull instead.

Tries Uuhei.

And Urushi and Shiba and Bisuke and Guruko.

Only Akino comes to his call, just before Kakashi is truly driven into insanity, and the dog immediately runs to his side, curling up to him with a worried whimper as Kakashi all but sags against his fur. The trembling is the worst, Kakashi has long since decided. It’s uncontrollable, the way his whole body rebels against him and shatters apart, reduced to agony and cold rubble.

Akino watches over him until the trembling stops. Until Kakashi can gather himself up again.

When he does, the first thing Kakashi asks is, “Where are the others?”

“The kid called us, too,” Akino answers ruefully. “Just before you did, boss.”

“Katana?”

“Yeah.”

The dog looks away, to the direction of the other room. Kakashi follows his gaze. If he listens hard enough, he thinks he can catch the sound of a child sobbing. Kakashi wipes a hand over his exhausted eyes.

“Go to her,” he says. “She needs you more than I do.”

Akino nods and leaves without another word. Kakashi watches his ninken go, and wishes he had the courage to stand up and follow but the Sandaime’s words echo in his head.

_She’s your next mission until I say otherwise. She’ll be out of your hands in no time._

Kakashi lies back down instead and stays awake until the sound of crying is no more.

 

_111 days_

She breaks his favorite mug.

On accident.

And really, it should be no big deal, it’s just a mug, just Kakashi’s ugly blue mug—

—but now there’s a mess of coffee and broken ceramic shards on the floorboards and Kakashi is too tired for this shit, he doesn’t want to clean up a mess if it’s not _his fucking mess_ and—

—and Katana is looking at him with eyes that are too wide, too glassy, too much. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, and before Kakashi can say another word, drops to the floor and reaches for the broken shards. “Sorry, I’m sorry, Kakashi-san, I’m—“

“Katana, don’t—“

The kid cuts herself on the ceramic and blood drips on the wooden floor.

“Fuck,” Kakashi swears, frustrated and angry and achingly, _god-awfully_ tired. He snatches the hand towel from the sink and reaches for Katana’s hand. “Let me see.”

“—sorry, Kakashi-san, I-I didn’t mean to, I’m sor—“

“Stop apologizing,” Kakashi snaps.

Silence rings hollow in his ears.

Katana stares at him, lower lip trembling, and doesn’t say another word, doesn’t blink even as Kakashi presses down on the cut and wraps the cloth around it.

“Wash it with soap and water.” Kakashi can hear himself speaking but it sounds detached, faraway. Like he’s underwater and drowning. “Stay in the living room until I clean this up.”

Katana stands up, walks away, and when Kakashi cleans up the mess, he tries not to hate himself too much.

_111 days and a half_

_Kakashi-san hates you,_ the voice hisses and Katana ignores it.

Instead, she does as she’s told. She goes to the bathroom and washes the wound with soap and water. She stays in the living room and listens to the sound of ceramic being swept and liquid being mopped up. Katana doesn’t cry.

_Kakashi-san hates you._

Katana holds her breath and ignores it. Katana doesn’t cry.

_Kakashi-san hates you. Just like everyone else does._

Katana doesn’t cry.

_125 days_

She doesn’t call him Hatake-san.

Or Kakashi-san.

Doesn’t call him anything. Doesn’t call him at all.

Katana bows her head when she sees him and walks around the compound with not-quite-there footsteps like a little ghost girl and picks a corner of the house to stay in until the night.

_She’s a mission,_ Kakashi reminds himself even as he feels his heart break further. _She’s just a mission._

_148 days_

Kakashi wakes up to screaming.

For a moment, he thinks it’s the nightmare again—of Rin, coughing and gasping out as Kakashi punches a hole through her chest, of blood spurting everywhere and Kakashi screaming and screaming and screaming—

But it’s the dead of night when he comes to his senses, alone in his room, and the scream echoes throughout the hallways of the compound. Kakashi runs.

He finds her in the midst of a panic attack.

Curled up into a ball as she blinks back the tears, hyperventilating, and her eyes shift from black to gold to black—

—“I’m sorry,” Katana sobs, voice high and thin, shuddering with her whole body. Her hands are shaking, clawing at her head. “I can’t breathe, I can’t, I’m sorry, _I can’t_ —“

“Okay,” Kakashi says and picks her up and—

—he doesn’t know what to do.

Doesn’t know whether to bring her to the hospital for strangers to poke at, doesn’t know whether to call his ninken or ANBU for backup, for guidance, for help, doesn’t know what else to do except scoop up the kid in his arms and pace around the house as she sobs into his shirt, except place a hand against Katana’s back and feel the tremors of her spine, feel the desperate race of her heart as she deals with an agony that Kakashi doesn’t know how to solve, because he can’t do anything to help, he breaks everything he touches and he can’t do anything right—

“Okay,” Kakashi repeats, and doesn’t believe himself. There’s a telltale sting building behind his eyes, and Kakashi wants to give up.

He hasn’t slept properly in months and there is a child crying in his arms and there is a house that echoes the past all around him and Kakashi—

—Kakashi slides down to the floor and curls his body around himself.

Rips his mask away like a drowning man aching for air.

Winds cursed limbs around Katana and forces his lungs to work. In and out. In and out.

This is all he can do.

Kakashi wills his hollow body to solidify beneath the weight, wills his blood-blemished hands to soften their touch, cradle the kid close, and Kakashi begs the weary thing in his chest to keep on beating. There are glass pieces cutting into the meat of his heart as always but today he asks them, _not now, not now, please. For her. For her._

“Okay. We’re okay, we’re okay.”

Kakashi presses his mouth to her hair and breathes.

And breathes.

And breathes.

This is all he can do.

“We’re okay.”

Until Katana breathes in time with him in weak hiccups, until her sobs turn into ragged exhales and her hands stop trembling. Until her cried-out eyes turn grey once more before they close out of exhaustion.

Through it all, Kakashi holds on and he breathes for both of them.

…

He goes back to bed with Katana still clinging to his side.

“Don’t go,” Katana tells him, and so Kakashi doesn’t.

Just settles down and tucks the blankets around both of them, and tells Katana, “Good night.”

They sleep until the sun rises.

(Kakashi wakes up before Katana does—he watches her then, small and tucked into the broken shell of his body like she’s safe there, like she finds comfort in the monstrous beat of his battered, banged-up heart, this girl with wondrous eyes and too much tragedy, this girl who fights like she’s created for it and tears up at every little praise sent her way. Kakashi closes his eyes, ignores the wetness clinging to his eyelashes.

Because Kakashi is tired. There is a child sleeping in his arms and there is a house that keeps them together each day despite the ghosts inside it. “You’re not just a mission,” Kakashi whispers. He hopes Katana understands.

Kakashi goes back to sleep.)

 

_149 days_

The second time he wakes up, Kakashi cleans the compound.

Throws out the old furniture and the boxes that have gathered dust in the closets, sifts through his father’s letters before sealing and burning them, and packs up his mother’s clothes for donation. He finds his old wooden practice katana, still in good condition, and sets it aside for later.

With each closet he clears out, Kakashi feels lighter and lighter.

It should scare him—the weight in his chest has since solidified, made a home out of him, and it’s all he’s ever known for so long—but frankly, Kakashi is sick of the taste of misery.

“Hatake-san, can I help?”

Kakashi turns to see Katana standing by the doorway. She has her battlefield expression on her face, as if preparing for war, but her eyes remain honest with their uncertainty. Despite everything that’s happened, it makes Kakashi smile.

“Of course.”

“I promise not to—“

“I know,” Kakashi tells her. He says it with all the sincerity he can muster. “I trust you.”

When Katana grins at him, big and bright, Kakashi allows himself to grin back.

 

_200 days_

They take an ice cream break after training, as promised. In hindsight, it’s probably bad parenting to promise something like that but Kakashi keeps his word, only regretting it a little when Katana orders the biggest cone the vendor has.

“ _Maa_ , I shouldn’t buy you ice cream before dinner next time,” Kakashi muses aloud, looking down at the messy child beside him as she devours the cone like a starved thing. He thinks of the bamboo shoots he was planning to cook for later and quickly deems it a losing battle now. “It’ll ruin your appetite, Katana-chan.”

“But it’s _ice cream_ ,” Katana says defensively, as if that should mean anything. She takes another huge bite and Kakashi wonders how she isn’t getting brain freeze. “Ice cream is good.”

“Bad for your teeth,” Kakashi tuts.

“But—”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Kakashi sighs, “Ice cream is good. Just finish your cone, kiddo.”

Katana nods, satisfied. “And then home?” she asks.

_Home._

“Yeah,” Kakashi says. There’s a softness to his voice that can’t help but seep through, and he smiles. “Let’s go home.”


	5. Katana

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She walks out of her room, into the doorway of the kitchen where Kakashi-san and Pakkun turn towards her in unison. Pakkun waves a paw in greeting, and by the stove, Kakashi-san smiles at her, bare-faced.
> 
> “Good morning, Katana-chan.”
> 
> (Will she lose this too?)
> 
> Katana smiles back, and dismisses her thoughts. “Good morning, Kakashi-san.”

 

Mornings in Konoha are warm.

The sun always rises up early, light piercing through the _shoji_ screen of Katana’s room and bathing everything in a golden yellow glow just before the rooster crows. Even after nearly a year, Katana is still getting used to it—she thinks of the cold mornings back in her old village, the grey chill in the air and the fog that lasts well into afternoons. Konoha seems to be the complete opposite of it.

In Konoha, everything seems…softer. Happier.

Katana isn’t sure how she feels about that. Pakkun had asked her one night if she’d missed her old home and Katana had only looked at him, conflicted. Most days, Katana barely remembers what happened, no matter how hard she tries. Most days, her thoughts seem to all blur together and Katana can’t tell which is real anymore and which isn’t. (Kakashi-san says it’s normal, says that Katana’s brain is repressing the bad things that happened to her; Katana isn’t sure she understands.)

Some days, though, she recalls it in flashes of memories—the long days and longer nights spent alone in an empty bedroom, listening to the clock above and waiting and waiting and waiting. For _Senpai_ , with his dark eyes and kind smile, to return from his training. For Stepmother, pale-skinned and grinning as thinly as a knife’s edge, to greet Katana good night. For Father, grave and larger than life, to finally acknowledge her.

Did she miss it, that life she had before Kakashi-san had found her bleeding among the trees and decided to save her? Did she miss it?

( _Did they miss her?_ )

Katana looks at the light creeping its way up to her room, watches with a quiet sort of curiosity as it reaches for the edges of her futon like a hesitant hand reaching out in invitation. Outside the room, she can smell something cooking, can hear Kakashi-san moving about and talking to someone—Pakkun, maybe, or one of the other ninken. Katana stands up and wonders.

( _Can’t she be allowed to forget what she has already lost?_ )

She walks out of her room, into the doorway of the kitchen where Kakashi-san and Pakkun turn towards her in unison. Pakkun waves a paw in greeting, and by the stove, Kakashi-san smiles at her, bare-faced.

“Good morning, Katana-chan.”

( _Will she lose this too?_ )

Katana smiles back, and dismisses her thoughts. “Good morning, Kakashi-san.”

…

They go through the day’s routine fairly quickly and settle down on the living room for the afternoon, Kakashi-san on the floor and polishing his weapons, and Katana on the couch occupied with the books Kakashi-san had bought her. It’s easier to live together in one house now than it had been before. Now, Katana does not feel the need to protect the silence and sounds out the words as she reads, kicking her feet gently against the chair in time with the tune that Kakashi-san is humming underneath his breath. Next to them, all eight ninken snore loudly as they nap in a dog pile.

When the evening comes, Kakashi-san puts away his weapons, moves to sit cross-legged on the deck outside and breathes in and out as he faces the sunset with his eyes closed.

Katana joins him, curious. She sits down next to him quietly, mimics his pose and closes her eyes, inhaling and exhaling with Kakashi-san’s timing. When she gets bored, Katana opens her eyes to glance at the horizon above. The sun is sinking slowly between the valley of the mountains and it paints the skies all sorts of colors—oranges and pinks and violets, all mixing in with the darkness that’s taking over. It’s beautiful. In her distraction, she misses the way Kakashi-san smiles down at her in clear amusement.

“Do you like the sunset, Katana-chan?”

Katana turns to the side and looks up at Kakashi-san’s mismatched eyes. (She’s always found that odd about him. When Katana had asked about it, Kakashi-san had only shrugged and answered with a sad smile, “A friend gave it to me.” Katana still doesn’t understand—she didn’t know friends can give away body parts.)

“Yes.” She looks back to the skies, a little dismayed when she sees the darkness take over completely. “It’s pretty. I wish the sunset was longer. It goes away so fast.”

“It doesn’t go away forever,” Kakashi-san says with a soft chuckle. He gives Katana’s head a gentle pat. “You can watch it tomorrow, when it comes back even prettier.”

“Okay.” Katana nods, then pauses. “Kakashi-san?”

“Yes?”

“When people go away,” Katana asks, hushed, “do they come back, too?”

 _Will Senpai and Stepmother come back for me?_ is what she wonders but doesn’t ask. _Will Father?_

“Ah.” Kakashi-san looks up to the completely dark horizon with an unreadable expression that reminds Katana of her father. Unlike her father, though, Kakashi-san doesn’t send her away. He smiles at her instead, sadly once more. Katana is beginning to wonder if Kakashi-san knows how to smile happily.

“People are complicated, Katana-chan. Sometimes they come back when you think they won’t.”  He turns back to the skies. “And sometimes, they leave permanently when you hope they stay.”

They sit in silence after his answer, both of them patiently waiting for the stars to come out before they go inside. In her quiet mind, Katana thinks she understands Kakashi-san’s sadness a little bit more.

…

Training consists of dirt, sweat, and not enough time to think as Katana barely dodges a punch to the face. She quickly retaliates with a roundhouse kick, twisting her body for one more kick aimed at his head when Kakashi-san blocked her feet with his arm.

“Taijutsu,” Kakashi-san had declared before they started, and immediately, Katana is reminded of her lessons, “is essential to any shinobi. Even when you’ve got no chakra left, even when you don’t have your sword, you’ve still got your hands and feet with you.”

“Like a survival skill,” Katana had parroted from her memories, and Kakashi-san beamed at her.

“Exactly.”

( _“Senpai, do I really need to fight?”_

_Senpai looks at her with a smile, patiently rearranging her form for the nth time. Katana adjusts her hands and repositions the stance of her feet, desperately ignoring the ache in her limbs from holding the position for too long._

_“You’re your father’s heir, Katana-sama,” Senpai tells her. “Of course you must fight.”)_

Kakashi-san ducks to avoid the kick. He clamps a hand around Katana’s ankle, hurling her into the air. Katana lets herself somersault in mid-air before landing with her feet on the ground, taking off running towards her opponent once more.

( _“Again.”_

_Katana stands back up from where she was crumpled on the dirt, clutching her bruised arm. Her lip is swollen from where she’d been caught by his fist, and the taste of blood is thick in her mouth. Pain makes unshed tears build up behind her eyes._

_“Again!” Father snaps._

_From the side lines, Stepmother watches with an easy smile and a cold glint in her eyes._

_Katana charges again.)_

Kakashi-san is ready for her when she attacks. He dodges her series of punches with swift movements, barely exerting an effort, only jumping back when Katana drops to the ground and does a sweeping kick in an attempt to knock him off his feet. With Kakashi-san, the spar is almost like a dance, graceful as he turns and flips all too easily, gaining distance from Katana’s assault.

Katana chases after him, moving as fast as her burning legs can take her. She jumps, fakes a right hook that Kakashi-san falls for, and finally lands a hit as she kicks him in the ribs instead. Kakashi-san staggers back with an audible “oof”, hand coming up to press the offended spot.

“What a kick,” Kakashi-san praises with a huff of laughter.

Katana makes the mistake of relaxing. In a blink, Kakashi-san is there with his arm pulled back and ready to land a punch, too close, too sudden, and Katana’s arms aren’t fast enough to block. She freezes, and fear grips her heart. She’s going to get hit, and there’s no stopping it. Katana can only flinch, squeezing her eyes shut out of reflex and—

( _—and the blow connects to her gut, and agony explodes everywhere. She’s wheezing with pain as she’s sent crashing against the far wall of the training area, and Katana can’t breathe. Bile rises up her throat when she moves—she pushes it down with all the willpower she has left._

_“Stand up,” Father commands, but Katana doesn’t want to anymore, doesn’t have any strength left in her battered body to try again. “Stand up, I said.” Katana stands up anyway. She does so on trembling knees and creaking bones, through a hazy vision that spins as soon as she pushes herself up._

_“Keep fighting,” Father says, getting angry when Katana tears up at his words. “Fight back, Katana.”_

_“Please, Tou-sama,” Katana begs. The first tears trail down her purple-bruised cheek. “It hurts.”_

_Her answer only makes Stepmother chuckle, only makes Father even more livid._

_“Then fight through the pain!”_

_“Please stop!”_

_This time, the voice doesn’t come from Katana. Father whirls around just as Katana bursts into proper tears at the sight of Senpai jogging hastily towards them. She collapses into his arms as soon as he’s close enough and tries to hide herself away within him as Senpai holds her._

_“What’s the meaning of this?” Father growls, but Senpai holds his ground firmly, meeting his eyes._

_“She’s just a child,” Senpai says. “She’s just a child, Rai—“)_

—the blow never comes.

Instead, she feels a playful flick against her forehead.

Katana’s eyes snap open in surprise and she stumbles back with a hand against her forehead, breathing ragged as she looks up and sees Kakashi-san with his visible eye curved in his version of a smile.

“Well done,” Kakashi-san says, pleased, bringing his hand down to pat her head. “I’m proud of you.” The words spread warmth across Katana and thaws out the cold dread that’s been building up in her throat. She swallows down the rest of it painfully and manages a small smile back.

“Break?” Katana asks.

Kakashi-san agrees easily with a hum.

They take a break that lasts even longer than the actual sparring session and soon, they’re lying on the grass together, Kakashi-san’s arm outstretched as he maps out the shapes in the clouds for her—a bunny, a dog, the shape of Konoha’s forest, according to Kakashi-san—the rest of their training all but forgotten. They stay in the training grounds long enough for Katana to watch another sunset. It’s even prettier than before, like Kakashi had promised her, and when the sun has sunk down into the mountains, they go home.

Kakashi-san cooks fish and miso soup, Katana helps him dry off the dishes—carefully, as not to have another broken dish incident—and then they go to their rooms.

And everything feels too perfect, too soft. Katana feels too happy.

The thing is, Katana knows she’s just Kakashi-san’s mission.

She knows.

It’s just that, sometimes, it’s easier not to think about it. It’s easier to forget, especially when Kakashi-san does things like treat her to ice cream or pat her head or let her play with the ninken or teach her how to throw a kunai properly with the patience of a saint. It’s easier to forget when Kakashi-san acts more like a dad than her father ever did, acts like Katana is not just a burden handed off to him upon orders, like Katana is not just a strange girl with an illness that she can’t begin to explain.

Like Katana someone more.

Like Katana is—

“Family,” Katana breathes out in the silence of her room. She closes her eyes, tamps down on the longing in her chest, and goes to sleep.

…

_In her dreams, there are a million golden eyes screaming in the pitch black darkness and the world burns in ashes of red. In her dreams, Senpai is slumped motionless in the corner of her old bedroom. Father is standing over him with a broken arm, looking at Katana with a primal kind of fear in his eyes as he shouts her name. Bodies litter the floor like ragdolls soaked in blood and bile and burning flesh, and in the midst of it all, Stepmother laughs and laughs with manic pride as she points at her._

_“Isn’t she wonderful?” Stepmother gasps, breathless with glee. “Isn’t she my greatest creation yet?”_

_“Get away from her, Tamiko!”_

_“Why?” Stepmother’s smile is a beautifully horrifying thing—lips stretched out and baring teeth, her eyes glassy and dead as she looks at Father. “Aren’t you proud of her,” she laughs, “Raikage-sama?”_

_“I told you to get away!”_

_Stepmother walks towards her, ignoring Father’s call, and Katana feels it, this boiling, black rage, this hatred painted gold and agony skinned red, and it calls for her, wailing in the hollow of her ears, it calls for sacrifice, for retribution, it calls for blood—_

_“Katana,” Stepmother coos, bending down, “Katana—“_

_Katana’s hands shoot up and rip Stepmother’s head off her neck._

…

She remembers.

Katana wakes up choking on tears and the urge to shatter apart.

In an instant, Kakashi-san is there, throwing open the door to her room with all the dogs right at his feet. He crouches down by her side and places with a warm hand on her back, and the ninken huddle in a circle, all eyes trained on her in worry but Katana doesn’t deserve it, doesn’t deserve any of this because she remembers the room and the stench of burning bodies, she remembers being in pain and being so angry and being drenched in so much blood—

“I remember,” Katana croaks out, looking at Kakashi-san with horror in her red-rimmed eyes. “I remember everything.”

…

She tells him the story.

Of a great shinobi that’s become a dismissive father, of a gentle woman who later on is driven insane by her greed, and of a mentor too bound to his duties to be of any actual help. Kakashi listens from the beginning and pays a detached sort of attention to each excruciating detail that comes out of the kid’s mouth, ignoring the slowing beat of his heart and the way it twinges with every shuddering hiccup Katana takes.

She tells him her training, how she preferred to spar with her senpai instead of her Father—at the very least, her senpai doesn’t leave her broken like her father did. She tells him of the long wait in between, going days with no one to talk to. She tells him of her stepmother and how Katana dreamt of killing her. By the end of it all, no matter how detached he’s made himself to be, Kakashi still feels numb with rage and grief, head spinning at the things he’s found out.

“Father wanted me to be stronger,” Katana recalls in a whisper, as hollow-voiced and lost as she had been the first time Kakashi had seen her in the hospital. “And Stepmother said she could do that but she made me sick instead. Senpai helped her.”

“Your stepmother,” Kakashi asks with a grimace, “what did she do to make you sick?”

“There was a circle,” Katana says, “with symbols in it. Senpai made me stand in the middle, and Stepmother did a jutsu, and then I felt—”

“—pain,” Kakashi continues, sick to the gut and a bitter taste left on his tongue as he connects the pieces. The immense dark chakra, the changing eyes, the jutsu. They gave her _a fucking cursed seal._ “You were sick for a few days after, vomiting and burning with fever. People were dead when you woke up.”

Katana nods weakly. She glances at him with blurry, bloodshot eyes that are haunted by shame. “How did you know?”

Kakashi doesn’t answer her. Doesn’t tell her about Anko, or Orochimaru, or the countless human experimentation subjects Kakashi had once found wasting away in underground laboratories during his brief time in Root ANBU. He gently pulls her in instead, resigned to the heaviness in his chest when the tears start again and Katana cries against him, much to his and his ninkens’ growing heartbreak.

 _They let her be experimented on,_ Kakashi thinks bitterly. _Even as the Raikage’s daughter, she wasn’t safe. She could have died._

“I killed them.” Katana has her head buried on his shirt, her shoulders shaking in guilt and exhaustion combined. In his arms, she feels so small, so utterly helpless, and Kakashi can’t imagine her going through what she has gone through and surviving at the end of it. She could have died. “They were family and I killed them, I killed her, I’m a monster—“

“You’re not,” Kakashi cuts her off as vehemently as he can without upsetting her further. He swallows back the lump in his throat and tucks her head underneath his chin, holds Katana like he’s trying to keep her—to keep both of them, from breaking apart. “You’re not a monster, Katana. You’re not.”

 _I should know,_ Kakashi doesn’t say, _it takes one to know one._

“I’m sorry,” Katana hiccups painfully, and Kakashi closes his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

It’s not, but she doesn’t have to be the one to worry about that. So Kakashi strokes her hair instead and coaxes her into breathing, murmuring all the while, “It’s okay.” The ninken gather close, waiting for her breath to even out, for Katana to fall asleep, and when she finally does, they stay and guard as if to chase any more nightmares away.

“What now, Kakashi?” Pakkun asks him. The dog’s brow is furrowed, expression troubled. “Her being different is one thing. Being the Raikage’s daughter? That’s a problem you didn’t sign up for.”

“She didn’t sign up for any of this either,” Kakashi reminds him. He glances at Katana, and allows himself to voice out his thoughts. “I don’t think he’s still looking for her.”

Pakkun frowns at him. “Whaddya mean?”

“If he was,” Kakashi says, grim, “Konoha would be in war right now for harboring a Kumo missing-nin.”

The dog’s eyes widen. “Or for an alleged kidnapping.”

Kakashi nods gruffly. Both of them turn to watch the sleeping girl in a moment of shared silence.

And then Pakkun asks, “When are you gonna report all this?”

Kakashi sighs.

“In the morning, maybe,” he says, trying to sound reassuring and falling short of it. “Not right now.”

…

Kakashi doesn’t get to report in the morning.

Not when just hours before midnight, the wooden door to Katana’s room explodes into splinters and all hell breaks loose.

…

The second time Katana blinks awake, it’s to the sounds of guttural barking and the feeling of being grabbed by gloved hands of a masked man looming over her. _Run_ , the voice in her head bellows, fear forcing her into action before her brain is even fully conscious, and Katana makes a hasty grab for the sword above her pillow and slashes it in a defensive arc.

The masked man jumps away but not without getting nicked in the chest by the blade. Crimson sprays across the futon she’s been lying on, and Katana throws off the blood-splattered covers like it burns. A quick glance around reveals her worst nightmare come true—the room is nothing more than broken wood and debris everywhere, chaotic as each ninken is faced off with an individual enemy; there are countless numbers of them, and the slightest move Katana makes has them all snapping their necks at her.

They’ve finally come for her.

The first one attacks head-on—swipes at her with a chakra-infused kunai and manages to cut a shallow wound on Katana’s cheek before Katana sidesteps and ducks underneath his arm to bury her weapon deep within his stomach.

She pulls it out roughly just in time to slice another enemy’s hand off and the soul-shattering scream that follows it has Katana’s bones rattling inside of her but she can’t think, she can’t think as she fights, as she slashes and stabs another man’s chest with her sword and cuts another one across his masked face, she can’t think because if she thinks, she’s going to throw up and then she’ll die—

“Katana!”

Katana whirls around, heart in her throat, and finds Kakashi-san surrounded by several more masked shinobi. She runs for him without hesitation, even when her hands go icy with fright, even when Kakashi-san shouts for her to get away, to run, to get Pakkun and run—

—but Katana can’t lose him, not him too, not when she’d just found the family she’d been longing for all along—

—and so she hacks her way through in an attempt to save Kakashi-san, blood spurting everywhere and painting every inch of her skin red, clouding her vision with the stench of open wounds and the noises of agony and Katana’s going to throw up, she has to save her Tou-san but she’s going to throw up—

Someone kicks her in the ribs, sending her flying across the room and crashing against the farthest wall. The world spins. Katana feels her guts churning as she tries to stand up but immediately, there’s a man towering over her who seizes her up by the neck and pins her against the wall. Her sword clatters uselessly to the ground as Katana claws desperately at the hand choking her.

“You killed my trainees, _gaki._ Danzo-sama will have a hell of a time with you _,_ ” the man hisses, his other hand reaching for her arm to twist it painfully, crushing it inside his fist, and distantly, Katana can hear Kakashi shouting her name, all the ninken growling in unison, and it hurts, it hurts, _it hurts_ —

There’s a sickening _snap,_ and Katana screams.

…

The Root shinobi with the blank mask breaks Katana’s arm and Kakashi _sees red._

He doesn’t breathe for a second, doesn’t move as Katana’s scream of pain echoes throughout the room and reverberates in his soul before she passes out but in a flash, Kakashi has his hand bursting with visible, crackling chakra as he punches a hole through the heart of the shinobi holding him down.

The shinobi drops dead upon Kakashi’s feet. Two other Root members take the place of his enemy, as if they can truly bar him from reaching Katana, as if they can stop him, _Sharingan no Kakashi_ , from saving _his child_ —

“Kill him,” Blank Face orders, slinging Katana carelessly over his shoulder as he vanishes into the night, taking Katana with him, and immediately, Kakashi understands how shinobi can turn into monsters, understands how one is pushed to commit slaughter, how rage and fear can feel like poison in your veins, how they make your heart feel like it’s going to stop—

He won’t remember how later, but that night Hatake Kakashi leaves behind two bloody corpses torn and mauled beyond recognition before he chases after the Root shinobi.

…

Kakashi and the ninken chase after the Root member well until dawn and manage to corner him at the Training Grounds, of all places. It’s when Kakashi is about to give his ninken the order to _kill_ that he’s pulled back—he whirls around in outrage and stops.

“Gai?”

Sure enough, Gai is standing there with a grave expression on his face. Behind him are Kurenai and Asuma and other jounin that Kakashi can’t name right now given the bloodlust haze in his mind. When he turns around to look back at the Root bastard, Anko is there alongside of him with a kunai to his throat.

“Kakashi, Root shinobi,” Anko says with a grim scowl, “both of you are to report to the Hokage’s Office. Now.”

…

Hatake Kakashi goes to the Hokage’s office on a Tuesday morning, and thinks of a million cruel ways he can kill the man before him.

It’s a horrible dawning déjà vu. There are dried flecks of blood and flesh underneath his fingernails as Kakashi reports the incident mechanically, the stench of carnage caught on to his sleep clothes judging by the way Gai tries to valiantly keep himself from gagging beside him. It should be funny, Kakashi thinks, how he’s back in the same position after almost a year, but truth be told, there is nothing funny about the situation at all.

There is nothing funny about Katana staring at him from the other side of the Hokage’s table with tears in her wide eyes, gritting her teeth with a crumbling courage as she’s held back by the Root shinobi.

There is nothing funny about the way Sandaime looks at the sight before him and gives nothing more than a weary sigh.

There is nothing funny about Shimura Danzo being involved at all.

“And then they attacked us in our house in the middle of the night,” Kakashi finishes his report, glaring coldly at the shinobi from across him.

“It was supposed to be an infiltration mission,” the Root sneers. “We get in, get the girl, and get out. You and the brat killed my men—”

“You hurt her.” Kakashi narrows his visible eye, hackles rising. “You think I’d let any of you live after that—“

“Tou-san,” Katana calls with a broken voice, and the whole room falls into stunned silence. The Hokage and Danzo look sharply up at Kakashi. From his side, Kakashi can feel the wide-eyed stares of Gai and his fellow jounin.

“I want Tou-san,” Katana pleads desperately, and Kakashi’s heart feels like it’s being shredded. He watches as she struggles inside the Root shinobi’s hold, fighting back tears as she looks at him, begging. “I want to be with Tou-san, I want Kakashi-san, please, _please—_ “ She struggles again, attempting to make a break for Kakashi.

“Shut up, _gaki_ ,” the Root hisses and then he’s yanking her back by her broken arm and Katana’s biting off an agonized sob.

Kakashi feels his blood boil. He takes a dangerous step forward, and Gai has to bodily hold him back before he can tear apart the man. “You touch her again and I will skin you alive,” Kakashi snarls, fists shaking by his sides.

Danzo grimaces deeply. “Watch your tone, Hatake!”

“This is all just a big misunderstanding,” the Sandaime interrupts before it can devolve into a screaming match, or an actual physical fight. “Root, stand down. Don’t hurt the child. Danzo, I told you I would handle this,” Hokage-sama grumbles with an accusatory glare, before turning to Kakashi. “Kakashi, I apologize for the mess. Rest assured, I will send men to help with the clean-up at the Hatake compound. The girl will be taken out of your hands, and you will be compensated accordingly,” he says.

The words ring hollow inside Kakashi and unlike before, something inside him doesn’t simply break—it shatters into a million jagged pieces instead, and Kakashi can’t breathe properly.

“Your mission ends here,” The Hokage continues, unaware of Kakashi’s inner turmoil. “As for the child, I have decided that she will stay with Danzo—“

“No.”

Gai inhales sharply. The rest of the jounin freeze.

The Hokage stares at Kakashi, frowning. “Pardon?”

“No,” Kakashi repeats, chest tight. _They can’t take Katana away. Not her, too._ “She doesn’t belong with Danzo, Hokage-sama. She doesn’t belong in Root.”

“And who are you to be the judge of that, _Hound_?” Danzo spits, just as the Hokage says, “The child is dangerous, Kakashi. She’s a liability and a danger to the outside world, not to mention, her identity is—“

“She’s just a kid,” Kakashi says, voice short of pleading. “Erase her identity, give her a new one—her old village doesn’t seem to care anyway. But she didn’t ask for any of this.”

“Don’t be soft, Hatake,” Danzo scoffs, much to Kakashi’s rage. He places a heavy hand on Katana’s head that has her flinching away. “She’s killed two of my men and severely injured the rest of them. All without the help of the cursed seal. This child’s a monster—“

Kakashi bristles. “Don’t you _dare_ call her that—“

“Why do you care?!” Danzo finally demands. He slams an angry hand down on the table. “She’s just your mission!”

“She’s my kid!” Kakashi roars.

 Silence explodes in the room once again. In the resulting shock, Katana finally breaks free of the Root shinobi’s hold. She runs for him, tackling him in the stomach with a hiccupping sob that seems to take over the whole office. Kakashi reaches for her, mindful of her broken arm, and lifts her tiny frame into his arms and lets her hide her face into his neck. Relief washes over him like water over a burn—his whole body seems to sag with it, and Kakashi barely resists the urge to disappear out of the Hokage’s Office and hide Katana away. _Kami_ , but she’s been through enough.

“She’s my kid,” Kakashi says hoarsely, resigned to the emotions in his voice. He’s laying it all out now, baring his weaknesses for everyone to see, for his fellow shinobi to see, like a raw, exposed nerve free for anyone to scrutinize but Kakashi finds that he doesn’t care anymore. “You gave her to me.”

Sandaime sighs. "As a mission-"

"As a good thing," Kakashi says, and the Hokage falls quiet once more.

“Do you know what you’re taking on, Kakashi?” Hokage-sama asks him gravely, quietly, as if afraid that any louder a voice will make Kakashi finally snap. “You’re twenty years-old and at the peak of your shinobi career. You’re not ready to be a father.”

“I was six years-old and a murderer. I was seven, an orphan and a killing machine. And then I was fifteen and I wanted to kill myself,” Kakashi says, watches as the Hokage’s expression falls and Danzo scowls. Next to him, Gai lets out a wounded sound. Kakashi holds Katana closer, wills his heart to slow. “No one asked me then if I was ready.”

The Hokage lowers his eyes. “I see.”

Sandaime takes a measured breath for a dreadful moment of uncertainty but then he goes on to declare, “Then from now on, this child will no longer be Katana of Kumogakure—“

“No,” Danzo hisses in disdain.

“—but Hatake Katana of Konohagakure.”

The jounin behind him release a collective sigh of relief. Beside him, Gai sniffs emotionally, clapping Kakashi on the shoulder with a murmured “Well done, rival.” But Kakashi drowns them all out in favor of listening to his heart and the way it beats slowly, surely, as if healing itself.

“Tou-san,” Katana says shakily, fisting his shirt with the hand that isn’t broken. “Don’t leave me again.”

“Never again,” Kakashi promises her. He presses his mouth against her forehead in a quick apology. “Never again, Katana-chan.”

…

Gai accompanies them to the hospital.

It’s relatively uneventful, thankfully, and the medic assigned to help them is good enough that Katana only feels the barest pinches of pain as she sets the bone back and then heals it with chakra.

“Gai,” Kakashi says tiredly as he looks at the way Katana’s head is dropping with every given second. “We need a place to sleep for the night.” He pauses, glancing down at the traces of a bloodbath on his clothes. “And to shower.”

“Say no more, Kakashi,” Gai tells him with a warm grin—Kakashi remembers all the other times it used to blind him; now, it’s just reassuring to know someone has his back. “You’re welcome at my home, my friend.”

And huh, isn’t that something?

First a daughter, and now a friend.

(At twenty, perhaps Kakashi isn’t doing so bad now.)

…

Mornings in Konoha are warm.

Katana wakes up with a sleepy slowness and watches as the golden light of dawn climbs its way across her newly refurbished room and onto her futon, always coaxing her up. Outside, she can hear the sounds of something cooking and Kakashi talking to someone who laughs loudly at whatever he says— _must be Anko-san_ , Katana thinks, getting out of her room and padding towards the kitchen. _Or Gai-san. Or both._

Katana walks into the doorway of the kitchen. Gai-san and Anko turn to greet her with big grins, and by the stove, Kakashi eye-smiles at her.

“Good morning, Katana-chan.”

Katana smiles. “Good morning, Tou-san.”


	6. Of friendship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You need more friends.”
> 
> This is how he deals with it. By blurting it out in the middle of cooking breakfast just as Katana gets out of her room and reaches the dining table, still rubbing sleep from her eyes, and with neither of them sitting down. Fuck, Kakashi thinks vehemently, fuck you, Genma.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone, I'm back with a chapter update!
> 
> Thank you so much for all your comments and kudos! I'm seriously blown away by the response that this old revamped fic of mine has gotten so far. You guys are too sweet and all of your support keeps me motivated to write.
> 
> A bit of clarification: Last chapter, I didn't really know how to put in the explanation into the narrative, but Danzo did know about Katana already through the Hokage. Hence, why the Hokage had told Danzo he'd handle it. It was impatience on Danzo's part that had made him order the Root to take Katana from Kakashi. The Root members were sort of like a morbid test of strength, somehow? To see how strong Katana is, if she's worth taking in into Root.

 

Of all people, it’s Genma who has the balls to point out the problem.

It happens like this:

Kakashi takes nearly two years before he finally invites over a couple of friends in a proper housewarming party, and pretends he doesn’t feel any relief when they agree to visit. No one exactly blames him for the overdue celebration—they’ve all either witnessed in person, or heard through the grapevine, the infamous incident involving the Root ANBU and Katana and most had understood the months-long paranoia that Kakashi experienced after that had led him to become a little overprotective of his charge, shutting them both away for a while.

(No other incident follows the first one, thankfully. If Kakashi hadn’t known Danzo to be an utterly stone-hearted, shameless bastard, he would’ve thought it’s the humiliation that’s keeping the man from trying something again.)

So it takes him two years.

Katana is seven years-old when she learns what a party is. Kakashi feels a little bad about it, but it’s cute nonetheless, the way her eyes shone with excitement when he’d told her people would be coming over and the way she stood by the door, greeting each and every single visitor with a respectful bow and a polite “Thank you for coming”.

She sits beside him with the air of a wannabe grownup as the rest of them talk and exchange stories (well, Gai and Anko do; Kakashi mostly just sits back and hums in agreement every now and then), and later on falls asleep slumped against Kakashi’s side. Kurenai smiles when she notices it—she whispers to Asuma in turn and the man grins, nudging Genma who gets the attention of Gai and Anko as well. Soon, all of them are wordlessly staring like soft fools at Kakashi’s sleeping child, and Kakashi tries to ignore the swell of pride that hits him.

Katana is a good kid—she’s kind and strong-willed and polite and—

“—lonely?”

Kakashi turns his attention Genma. “Hm?”

“I said,” Genma repeats with a thoughtful frown on his face. “Isn’t the kid lonely? Don’t think I’ve ever seen her have another friend around.”

Kakashi raises an eyebrow. “She has me,” he says, suddenly defensive.

(There’s truth in Genma’s words though—since he’d taken her under his wing, Katana hadn’t had anyone else but him. In this spacious compound, they existed together alone and Kakashi hadn’t really thought much of it. It was the way he had grown up, after all, with him and Sakumo being the only ones in the house. History, Kakashi muses, has an ironic way of repeating itself. Maybe it repeats to teach him a lesson.)

“Is that enough?” Genma wonders aloud.

The others feel the tension in the atmosphere and exchange careful looks, but Shiranui Genma just tips his bitten senbon up in challenge. Kakashi stares him down coolly. “She has me,” Kakashi repeats and then adds, “She also has Pakkun and the others.”

“Yeah, but you’re her guardian. Pakkun’s a dog. I don’t think that counts.”

“And you’re an expert at children now?” Kakashi shoots back.

Genma cracks a grin. “Well, I _was_ a child.” He raises both hands up in surrender then, placating Kakashi and defusing the animosity between them. “I’m just saying. Sorry if I overstepped.”

“You did,” Kakashi tells him but shakes his head anyway and Genma laughs. The others heave a sigh of relief, and then Anko says, “Remember when these two first met and hated each other’s guts?”

And that’s that. End of discussion.

…

Except it isn’t really, because Genma has a point, and now Kakashi can’t sleep.

Barely one year as an official parent and he’s already fucked up.

Kakashi curses Genma and tells himself he’ll deal with it first thing in the morning. Properly and gently, with the both of them sitting down, as how it should be dealt with.

…

“You need more friends.”

This is how he deals with it. By blurting it out in the middle of cooking breakfast just as Katana gets out of her room and reaches the dining table, still rubbing sleep from her eyes, and with neither of them sitting down. _Fuck,_ Kakashi thinks vehemently, _fuck you, Genma._

To her credit, Katana doesn’t react explosively—but then again, she doesn’t seem to react at all. Kakashi watches her yawn and then take a seat at the table, blinking down at its surface with a blank expression on her face. Kakashi waits, and waits.

And waits.

Finally, Kakashi clears his throat. “Did you hear what I said?”

“Yes, Tou-san,” Katana says unconvincingly and meets his eyes. “The eggs are burning.”

“ _Shi—_ take mushroom,” Kakashi hisses, quickly turning back to the stove to salvage what remains of his eggs. When he successfully averts that crisis, he sees Katana frowning in thought and staring up at him.

“Why do I need more friends?” She asks. Katana has a particular expression on her face that Kakashi knows all too well by now—the furrowed brows and the piercing grey-eyed stare that never wavers all but screams out a silent brand of stubbornness only Katana has, and Kakashi does not have enough energy to deal with it yet.

He sighs, and regrets ever listening to any of his friends.

“Friends are important,” Kakashi explains instead, as much as he can on an early morning. He plates the eggs, sits down across her, and gestures for Katana to eat. “No shinobi—or person, for that matter—can survive for long without having the support of good friends. Without having anyone to rely on.”

Katana blinks up at him. “But I have you to rely on, Tou-san.”

“Yes, but I’m your guardian,” Kakashi says patiently as he pulls down his mask to eat, borrowing words from Genma, of all people. _And apparently, I’m not enough._ “I don’t count. You need friends you can call your own.”

“Okay,” Katana says, just as patiently, and Kakashi is a little horrified to realize that _that_ is his tone of voice. Kami, what has he turned her into? “I have Pakkun.”

“Pakkun’s a dog,” Kakashi points out.

Katana purses her lips in reply, obviously displeased. “I have Bull.”

“Also a dog.”

“Akino,” Katana suggests. “Uuhei, Guruko—“

“Please don’t name all the ninken,” Kakashi tells her dryly and gets a withering look in turn.

They finish breakfast in silence, Kakashi observant, Katana oddly contemplative as they eat. It’s only when they’re washing the dishes that Katana speaks again, in a murmur so quiet that Kakashi could’ve so easily missed it if he hadn’t been waiting for it.

“I don’t know how to make friends.” It’s a hushed, downtrodden statement that makes Kakashi pause in his task. Katana looks just as disappointed as she admits it, frowning down at the bubbles in the sink. “I don’t think I’m very good at it.”

Kakashi peers at her face. “You won’t know for sure until you try.”

“I did try.” Katana looks up at him guiltily. “I went to the park without telling you one time. I met kids there, and they said were twelve, and they said they didn’t want to be friends with me.”

“You went to—,” Kakashi cuts himself off and lets it go with a shake of his head. _One issue at a time._ “Why didn’t they want to be friends with you?”

“They said my skin was too dark. They asked me if I came from the sun.”

Kakashi’s hand twitches, barely keeping himself from breaking a plate. “Did you get their names?” he asks, suddenly overcome with morbid curiosity.

Katana frowns at him knowingly. “You can’t fight them, Tou-san. They’re twelve.”

“And you’re seven,” Kakashi says. “They shouldn’t have been picking on you.”

Katana shrugs. “Kids can be mean,” she says, sounding like a tired middle-aged man and immediately, Kakashi realizes Genma’s point even further. They’re her only influences right now, him and the ninken and Kakashi’s group of somehow friends—and if Kakashi is going to be honest, the only one who he really wants influencing her out of all of them is Kurenai, and that’s only because Kakashi doesn’t know much about the chuunin’s eccentricities yet.

“Everyone I knew before had dark skin,” Katana goes on to say. She glances at her forearms, places one right next to Kakashi’s as if to compare and her face falls in dismay at what she sees. “I didn’t know it was a problem,” she mutters.

“It’s not,” Kakashi tells her firmly, bumping his shoulder against hers in a gentle manner and knocking her out of her thoughts. “People are afraid of what’s different from them, and sometimes, they turn that fear into anger and hate.”

“Why?”

“It’s an easy way out,” Kakashi says, turning to see Katana furrowing her eyebrows at him, unable to accept his reason. He smiles a little. “I know you’re not like them, Katana-chan.”

“I’m not,” she declares with a definitive, stubborn nod. “I won’t be.”

“Good.”

They resume washing the dishes.

“…Tou-san.”

“Yes?”

“Do you think I can make friends if I try?”

“Of course,” Kakashi hums with a small smile. “Hatakes can do anything they put their minds to. And you’re a Hatake now, aren’t you?”

He doesn’t need to turn to know that Katana is smiling back.

…

She comes running back to the compound during an afternoon out, feet hitting the ground loudly in her excitement, Katana keeps forgetting to be quiet when she’s this happy, but it doesn’t really matter right now, she supposes—because it’s been a week since the conversation in the kitchen about friends, and finally, Katana has found one. Out in the open fields, too, jumping up at her as if also desperate for someone to call a friend.

“Tou-san!” She calls out, grinning from ear to ear and ignoring the way her heart is pounding from the effort of running home. “Tou-san, I made a friend!”

“You did?”

Kakashi walks out into the foyer, footsteps soundless and languid in their descent on the wooden floor, but Katana can see the bright, happy twinkle in his mismatched eyes and the easy smile on his bare face. He’s pleased as well, Katana realizes, and it makes her all the more proud of her accomplishment.

“Alright,” Kakashi hums, “where’s your frie—“

Katana carefully holds out both of her hands in front of her, beaming.

“…Ah.”

Kakashi’s blinks down at her hands, and then blinks back up at her.

Katana smiles up at him.

“Katana,” Kakashi says slowly, “that’s a frog.”

…

She tries again after three days, after Kakashi has made sure to explain to her why frogs don’t count as friends. Personally, Katana thinks it’s unfair—the frog did like her, after all, and at least frogs don’t judge people by their skin. But she makes another friend at the park nonetheless, and like before, she comes running home with a determined look on her face.

“Tou-san,” Katana says, grinning when she finds Kakashi waiting for her on the deck. “I made a friend.”

“No,” Kakashi tells her with an amused smile after glancing at her arms. “You found a puppy.”

…

They return the puppy to the Inuzukas.

One week later, Katana walks home holding a glowing jar in her hands.

“I made friends.”

“Fireflies,” Kakashi notes, raising an eyebrow.

He huffs out a laugh when Katana clutches it closer to her body, defending the insects from his judgment. “They’re pretty,” she says by way of explanation. She watches Kakashi shake his head but he pats the empty space right next to where he’s sitting anyway, and Katana goes dutifully.

“Have you named them?” Kakashi asks her later, when they’re both sleepy from watching the bugs fly around inside the jar. They’ve gotten tired too, it seems, most of them settling down on the clear base of the jar instead of fluttering in the air.

“No,” Katana says. She twists the lid open and watches with relief as the fireflies take flight, bursting with energy once more as they escape. At least none of them have died. “I can’t be friends with them for long, can I?”

“I guess not,” Kakashi says. He pats her head and when Katana looks up at him, Kakashi smiles down at her. “You’re a good kid, Katana.”

Katana smiles back. Even when she doesn’t have friends, at least she has him. “Thank you, Tou-san.”

…

She brings home a cat.

Kakashi takes one look at it and narrows his eyes.

“No,” he says.

“But—“

“No.”

Katana sets the cat free, and Kakashi doesn’t let her go until he’s washed off all the cat hairs from Katana’s hands.

…

“Katana,” Kakashi finally tells her with a barely suppressed sigh after she brings him a mouse, “I meant a _human_ friend.”

“…Okay,” Katana grudgingly agrees. She looks down at the tiny rodent in her hands in consideration. “Can I keep it as a pet, though?”

“Pakkun will eat it.”

Katana scowls, and returns the mouse to the fields.

…

Two weeks later, Katana walks to the gates of the compound empty-handed. Kakashi is waiting for her when she approaches, with uncertainty in her grey eyes and a wavering smile on her lips. “Tou-san,” she begins but doesn’t look at him for long. She looks back at the gates instead, as if waiting for somebody. “I…think I made a friend.”

Kakashi looks at her evenly. With his mask up, he knows it’s harder for Katana to read his expression, but his lone eye is encouragingly soft as Katana returns his gaze. She relaxes a little. “Did you?” he asks her curiously, a little hesitantly.

“Can he stay for dinner?” Katana asks in turn, in lieu of an answer. When Kakashi nods, Katana walks back to the gates. Kakashi’s eyes are on her as Katana extends a hand towards somebody he can’t see yet and for a second, Kakashi holds close the hope building up in his chest.

 _It could be another animal,_ he thinks instead, bracing himself for the worst, _it could be a bear this time._

“Come on.” Kakashi catches the trail of Katana’s voice as she whispers, gesturing at someone. “He’ll like you.”

“I—It’s not like I’m worried about that or anything!”

It’s a boy who speaks up. Kakashi holds his breath.

“I promise he’ll like you,” Katana says, and then there’s someone who takes her hand. Katana pulls him out in the open, this boy with golden hair and blue eyes, with a fierceness to his expression that rivals his mother’s and features that bear too much resemblance with Kakashi’s old sensei.

Because of course, as luck would have it, his kid had to find a friend in one Uzumaki Naruto.

…

Katana has been told once that a good shinobi should never harm civilians.

After all, civilians are what make up a village to its core and a village is what created the need for shinobi in the first place. There is no such rule towards fellow shinobi but Katana has made up her mind not to hurt people anyway, unless it’s completely called for (mainly because hurting people makes Katana remember red, and where there is red, black and gold follow). Kakashi calls this a _nindo_ , beaming down proudly at her as he says it.

Katana isn’t sure she fully understands, but at least her Tou-san is happy.

 

It happens like this:

The older kids are back at the park to make fun of her, following at her heels with footsteps that scrape explosively against the gravel and voices that grate on the ears. In hindsight, it’s probably a mistake on Katana’s part to ever go back to the park.

“Hey, look who’s back! It’s the Charcoal Kid!

“You’ll get even darker if you stay under the sun, Charcoal!”

“How does anyone find you in the dark?”

They laugh, and it’s an ugly, cruel sound that reminds Katana oddly of her stepmother’s lifeless chuckles. Fortunately, they are not civilians—Katana can see it in their clothes, how one of them has a genin _hitai-ate_ tied proudly around his forehead.

Unfortunately, Katana has a _nindo._

(Breaking it would probably make her Tou-san disappointed at her.)

So she clenches her jaw and doesn’t look back, doesn’t fall for any of their taunts even when the words feel like a physical blow to the chest, even when they hound her like ghosts. _As long as they don’t hurt me,_ Katana thinks with her eyes trained forward and her fists shaking by her sides as she walks away, towards home, _as long as they don’t hurt me, I will not hurt them._

“Hey, Charcoal! Are you fucking deaf too?”

The tallest of them—the genin one—jogs to catch up and stops in front of Katana, blocking her way. He’s got a grin on his face, one that doesn’t match with the hate burning in his brown eyes or the deep, angry etch of his eyebrows.

 _People are afraid of what’s different from them,_ Katana reminds herself, even as she tilts her chin up to meet his eyes. The boy makes the barest of flinches at the face of Katana’s unblinking grey stare, and bares his teeth at her.

“You ignoring us, Charcoal?”

 _I will not hurt them,_ Katana tells herself. She watches as the boy in front of her lifts a hand up threateningly and she steels herself for it, standing her ground. Katana tells herself he won’t hurt her as much as she will if she strikes back, and her own hands are forced to still by her sides.

_I will not hurt them._

It happens like this:

Katana feels it happen before she sees it—the outraged spike of chakra that does not come from her, so very red and livid and burning as it approaches. She even hears it happen before she sees it—a rush of air, the crack of knuckles against a cheekbone, and an enraged shout—

“You leave her alone, ‘ttebayo!”

An orange blur attacks the genin, both of them tumbling down to the ground in a mess of yelling and dust. Katana sees gold—but it’s different; there is no hatred that comes surging into her veins. Instead, she stares as the blonde kid lands another punch down at the genin and yells their lungs out. A brief turn of the kid’s head reveals a boy, with whiskered cheeks and startlingly bright eyes the color of the sky. There’s a moment where Katana falls breathless, wide-eyed with her heart beat slowing down in her own ears. It feels a lot like the moment when Kakashi had declared her his kid to everyone in the big office and all of them had fallen silent.

And then one of the other kids behind her says, “Shit, it’s the demon brat!”, and they run for their fallen friend with their hands balled into tight fists and Katana moves faster than her brain can think, dropping to the ground for a sweeping kick that trips the two boys who thought they could bypass her.

One of them falls on his butt and then gets angry enough to take a swipe at her. Katana ducks under his arm and hits him in the solar plexus. The other falls forward. He picks himself up with a snarl and like his friend, aims a head-on punch that Katana dodges. She trips him again, swinging her leg against his shins and when he falls, he scrapes his knees bloody on the pavement and starts screaming loud enough that Katana winces.

“Go away,” she snaps at them for the first time, hiding the tremor of her voice with a sharp look. _Don’t hurt them anymore, don’t hurt them anymore, don’t—_

The bleeding kid stumbles on his feet and runs away.

The other one whips around to glare at her. “Freak,” he hisses, sounding just a touch scared, and makes a break for the genin and the blonde boy before Katana can stop him again. He roughly shoves the kid in orange to the side and yanks up the genin by the arm.

“Freaks!” He spits out again, supporting his friend as they hobble away from the scene as fast as they can and distantly, Katana thinks, _I can’t tell Tou-san about this._

“Oi! Are you okay?”

Katana whirls around and finds herself face to face with the blonde boy. He’s got a purpling bruise on his right cheek and a split lip that’s welling up with blood, and yet he’s looking at her with such intense concern as if it’s Katana who’s injured. “Are you okay?” he asks again, insistent. “Can you talk? Why’re they picking on you?”

Katana blinks rapidly, a little bit stunned and a lot confused about everything that’s taking place. “I’m okay. I can talk,” she informs him, and then looks down at herself before looking back up at very blue eyes. “They were making fun of my dark skin.”

“Oh,” he says, frowning thoughtfully as he looks her over and Katana waits for his answer with a fluttering nervousness in her stomach. “Well, I guess you are different—“

Katana braces herself.

“—but I don’t think that’s a bad thing!” The boy grins at her then, all teeth and squinty eyes and blinding happiness. Katana can only stare back, speechless at how bright the boy is. “Where are you from, though? I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before.”

“I’m,” _a runaway from another village. I was taken in and then I was kidnapped and then I was adopted_ , “new here,” Katana finishes lamely. She rubs the back of her neck, at a loss for what to say all of a sudden. How does one deal with a boy who has the looks and personality of a sunrise? “I—I want to…thank you, for helping me.”

“Don’t mention it,” the boy says, waving it away like it’s something he does on a daily basis. Katana has the striking realization that she wouldn’t put it past him to do so—he seems like the kind of kid that helps other people a lot. “What’s your name?”

“Katana,” she says and bows on reflex, flushing at the sound of the boy’s snicker. (But it’s not an unpleasant sound, not a cruel one, and she lets it be.) Katana straightens up and extends a hand toward him instead. “Hatake Katana.”

He takes her hand and shakes it enthusiastically. “I’m Uzumaki Naruto! Wanna play shinobi with me?”

Katana blinks at him. She doesn’t know how to play shinobi—she’s pretty sure it’s not a game—but she finds herself nodding at him anyway. Warmth blooms in her chest at the sight of his smile again, as if he’s got a happy virus that he spreads around. Naruto pulls her along and cuts off her train of thought.

“Come on then, Katana-chan!”

Katana lets herself be dragged—and allows herself to grin back.

…

Uzumaki Naruto eats like a starved thing.

Kakashi watches him, watches both of them quietly, the way Naruto wolfs down the food on his plate—even the vegetables that Katana herself has refused to eat once or twice—the way Katana talks to him with unwavering interest and focus, and the way the boy answers back animatedly, as if the two of them have known each other all their lives and not barely a day.

When Naruto finishes his food, the look he sends at Katana’s still half-full plate does something to Kakashi’s chest and his stomach sours. It doesn’t help that Katana’s only response is to exchange their plates with the air of someone who has been doing it all this time, smiling a little sadly when Naruto grins widely at her.

“Naruto,” Kakashi finds himself saying.

(All this time, he has imagined the name would feel like ashes on his tongue and bitter regret at the back of his throat, like the old ghosts that live in his head. Saying it now, it feels a little like saying Katana’s name instead. Like softness and just a little bit of heartbreak.)

Naruto pauses in mid-chew, looking a little guilty. “Yeah, Hatake-san?”

Kakashi looks at the boy—at the blonde, blue-eyed face of Minato-sensei and the soul of Kushina-san, and he looks past that. Past the memories and the remnants of what was once, and all Kakashi sees is a child. _He’s just a kid,_ Kakashi thinks, and remembers feeling that way once the first time he stumbled upon Katana in the forest.

(History, after all, has an ironic way of repeating itself. Maybe it repeats to teach Kakashi a lesson.)

“Naruto. Come by again tomorrow,” Kakashi tells him, softly. “I’ll treat you and Katana-chan to lunch.”

“Really?” Naruto gawks at him and, seeing no malice in Kakashi’s face, begins to grin a bright, blinding thing of happiness. It tugs on Kakashi’s own mouth like an infectious virus. “That’s awesome, dattebayo!”

“I want to try ramen, Tou-san,” Katana suggests by Naruto’s side, smiling just as widely as her new friend. “Naruto says Ichiraku Ramen tastes like heaven.”

“It really does, Katana-chan! Ichiraku has the most amazing bowl of ramen, believe it!”

“I believe it.”

 _I’ll do right by them,_ Kakashi thinks as resigns himself to the smile underneath his mask, _this time, I’ll do things right._

 


	7. Growth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katana is seven and a half years-old when they enroll in the Academy.
> 
> She is twelve when they graduate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretty sure I messed up the age gaps and the timeline but I promise, I did my best.
> 
> Also, here's some adorable fanart of Katana and Kakashi by the lovely teawithmochi: https://gyazo.com/0000ae4013b6a70c1c34400ccefbb522

 

Katana is seven and a half years-old when they enroll in the Academy.

“Come on, come on, _come ooon_ , we’re gonna be late, ‘ttebayo!”

Naruto arrives at the compound at the break of dawn and rushes Kakashi and Katana through the morning routine. He finishes breakfast first, washes his dishes first, and pesters them until Katana breaks into laughter and Kakashi sighs as they get ready. He keeps jumping up and down in his excitement, practically vibrating with energy as he speaks, and the floorboards underneath his feet creak in protest. “They teach the real stuff there—how to fight, how to throw kunai and shuriken, how to use secret jutsu—“

Kakashi clears his throat, “Probably not secret jutsu—”

“—and everything else!” Naruto continues with a grin, ignoring Kakashi completely. It makes Kakashi roll his visible eye to the ceiling, as if asking a higher power for strength, and makes Katana bite back a laugh as she toes on her shoes. “We’re gonna be real shinobi today, aren’t you excited?”

“I am,” Katana says, standing up and herding Naruto out the door to spare Kakashi from doing more of his dramatics. They wait for Kakashi to lock up, and then they venture out to the streets, ignoring the odd looks that they garner on their way to the school.

Katana is used to the looks by now, understands the depth of meaning behind them. There is something in Kakashi that the villagers find odd, something in Katana that they do not approve of, and something in Naruto that they hate—but eyes cannot burn down a person no matter how much they glare, and looks cannot cut apart skin no matter how much hate they convey, and so Katana walks on.

It’s a bright, beautiful morning outside, after all.

The Academy is bursting with activity when they reach it, a contained sort of chaos, with parents lined up in long queues at admission tables and kids in Katana and Naruto’s ages playing everywhere and occupying every inch of the school grounds.

“ _Yatta!_ Come on, Katana-chan, let’s go!”

Katana flushes. “Wait, Naruto—!”

The blonde runs towards the crowded space and Katana stops in her tracks, stupefied at the scene. She watches her friend disappear into the crowd, already striking up a conversation with some other kid he knows. Next to her, Katana can hear Kakashi breathing even more quietly than usual and Katana gets it. There’s an overwhelming urge to turn on her heels and run back home.

She turns to Kakashi and tells him resolutely, “I can enroll next year, Tou-san.”

“No,” Kakashi says in a weak croak and takes a deep breath to steel himself. “We’re doing this today. Naruto will pitch a fit if we don’t.”

Katana looks back at the crowd of people, hands getting cold with nerves already. _So many kids,_ she thinks, dizzy, and looks up at Kakashi again. “Are you sure? Next year is fine—“

“Go,” Kakashi groans, waving her off. He looks like he’d rather take up another one of Gai-san’s challenges instead. “Take care, have fun, stay with Naruto. I’ll look for the two of you when I’m done.”

He heads for the admission tables and leaves Katana slumping in defeat, looking uncertainly at the sheer number of people before her. Not too far away from where she stands, she catches a glimpse of Naruto’s orange shirt and a shock of his hair. Resigned to her fate, Katana breathes in, breathes out, and weaves her way into the crowd.

She finds Naruto with two other boys that are distinctly opposite of each other. One is dark-haired and loose-limbed, looking bored with the world around him; the other one is kind-faced, expression open as he talks to Naruto. When they all turn to look at her, Katana’s first instinct is to hold her breath—she doesn’t know what she’s waiting for, but she waits anyway, frozen in her place like a statue until Naruto snickers and the boy with the spiky ponytail raises an eyebrow.

 _Say something. Introduce yourself,_ Katana hisses inwardly, _don’t bow, though, for god’s sake, don’t bow._

“Hi.” The other boy waves at her—he’s built soft, cheeks round and painted with red swirls, his smile shy as he greets her. “Are you Katana-chan?”

Katana glances at Naruto in accusation. Her friend grins back toothily.

“Yes. Hello.” Katana fumbles with the words in her mouth, hands twitchy by her sides. _I wish I had my sword._ She has to remind herself again not to bow—Naruto keeps telling her it’s too polite. “I’m Hatake Katana.”

“I’m Choji.” He points to the bored-looking boy who lifts a hand in greeting like it drains all of his energy. “That’s my friend, Shikamaru.”

“Hello,” Katana says again, stuck on the word, and bows before she can stop herself.

Shikamaru sighs. “Troublesome.”

…

They go to a stream at the back of the Academy, far away from the noise and bluster of the people waiting in lines and children playing. Naruto and Choji play tag, Choji an unwilling participant that Naruto keeps on chasing, and Katana finds herself left sitting on the grass beside Shikamaru, who lies on the green earth and looks up the sky without a care.

They don’t talk for the longest time.

And then, Shikamaru says, “You don’t look like you’re from here.”

Katana glances down at him and sees that he’s still got his eyes on the clouds. “I’m not.”

“I thought as much,” Shikamaru mutters. “You’re from Kumogakure, aren’t you?”

Katana blinks. “How did you know?”

Shikamaru shrugs, a jerky motion that doesn’t suit his languid body. “Most people from Kumo have dark skin, or so my old man says.” He says it like a fact, says it without malice. There is no cruel laugh that comes after it. “It’s just a wild guess.”

“It’s a good guess,” Katana praises, smiling hesitantly. She brings her knees closer to her body, wraps her arms around them as she mimics him and stares up at the cloudy blue sky. It’s pretty—she remembers a time she and Kakashi had done the same after sparring. “I ran away until I reached Konoha,” she tells him, much to her surprise, but Katana also finds that it’s easier now, talking about things that had happened. “Tou-san found me in the forest and took care of me for a while. He also saved me when I got kidnapped a year later, and then he adopted me.”

“Eeehh,” Shikamaru sighs, making a face up at the clouds. He doesn’t ask her the whys or hows. Instead, he says, “What a drag.”

Katana laughs a little.

Her shoulders sag, the tension in her spine loosening up. Shikamaru isn’t Naruto, she decides—not blue-eyed or loud-voiced or sunlight incarnate, but he’s okay. He doesn’t comment as Katana’s back hits the ground gently, long hair spreading across the grass as she joins him, and doesn’t complain either when Katana points a finger up to the sky, saying, “Look, a bunny.”

Instead, Shikamaru points to the cloud next to it and tells Katana, “And there’s the fox chasing after it.”

By the stream, Choji sits with his back to them and his feet submerged in water as he opens a bag of chips, offering some to Naruto with reluctance. Naruto takes one, munching happily, and grins at the sight of Shikamaru and Katana.

It’s a good day.

…

They start school on a Monday.

Naruto sleeps over at the compound now for most days of the week more than he goes back at his apartment, so they get an early start with him waking up at an ungodly hour in the morning. Apparently, his first goal of the day is and will always be to drag Kakashi bleary-eyed out of his futon. Pushing Katana out of hers is the second goal.

Kakashi cooks breakfast for all of them, Katana washes the dishes, and Naruto packs up his and Katana’s lunches before pushing Katana towards the door.

“Naruto,” Katana huffs in protest, “at least let me say goodbye—“

“Kaka-oji-san!” Naruto yells once they’re both out the door. “Katana-chan wants to say goodbye properly!”

“Yes, yes, keep it down, pipsqueak.” Kakashi walks to where they are, looking at them with exasperated fondness. He gives a gentle pat to Katana’s head and quickly ruffles Naruto’s hair. “Naruto, listen to your teachers and stay out of trouble. Katana, look after Naruto—“

“Oi!”

“Yes, Tou-san.”

“—and have fun at school, both of you.”

“We will,” Katana says with a nod of determination, smiling at the happy twinkle in Kakashi’s eye, and tugs at Naruto to start walking.

…

Katana does well in school.

She’s hardly going to be number one, given that her classmates are the child prodigy Uchiha Sasuke and genius Haruno Sakura, not to mention Yamanaka Ino, who is both terrifyingly pretty and terrifyingly smart, but her teachers tell her that she excels in Science and aces the basics of Ninjutsu and is a fairly decent student all around.

Naruto sleeps in Konoha History class and struggles with Ninjustu but does wonderfully at everything else.

At the end of the year, they both present their grades to Kakashi and get him to treat them.

“Ramen,” Naruto insists, leading the way.

By his side, Katana grins at her Tou-san. “And then ice cream.”

“Maa,” Kakashi sighs, mumbling his token protest, “I should have never agreed to this.”

…

On weekdays, Katana and Naruto go to school and learn all they can.

Katana sits by their spot under the maple tree during lunch break, waiting for Naruto and whoever he has decided to drag along to eat with them for the day. Usually it’s Inuzuka Kiba, who is just as loud as Naruto is and keeps feeding his puppy all sorts of human food. Sometimes it’s Watanabe Haru, whose mother packs her cute bento with rice shaped like animals. Other times still, it’s Aburame Shino who doesn’t really eat much but is at least a peaceful companion, nodding to Katana in quiet thanks whenever she offers some of her lunch.

(Naruto does not invite Uchiha Sasuke—he claims he tried once, and that Sasuke-teme ignored him and kept eating alone anyway, _he’s such a bastard, Katana-chan, he’s so arrogant and honestly who does he think he is, what do you mean I shouldn’t call him a bastard, he IS one—_ nor has he ever tried to invite either Ino or Sakura.

If Katana’s being honest, she’s kind of glad Naruto doesn’t invite either girl—Ino is confident and pretty, Sakura is smart and just as pretty, and they both seem like they can tear Katana apart with one look. She’s in awe of them, really, but that doesn’t mean she’s ready to talk to them.)

Shikamaru and Choji meet them at the stream after class, where Naruto and Choji practice their kunai throwing and Katana joins Shikamaru in watching the clouds go by. Sometimes, Shikamaru brings a shogi board and attempts to teach them how to play the silent mental game in the midst of the sounds of water flowing and noisy children’s laughter in the distance.

On the weekends, they go to the training grounds.

Kakashi spars with Katana and practices endless Bunshin no Justu with Naruto until he gets it right. They go home just as the sun goes down between the mountains and at the compound, dinner is a noisy affair filled with Naruto’s laughter and Kakashi’s dramatic looks and Katana grinning and grinning until her jaw hurts.

 _This is it,_ Katana thinks, smile soft and mind quiet. Inside her chest, her heart beats steady. _This is family._

…

Katana is eight years-old when she finally talks to Yamanaka Ino.

They’re partners for a Show and Tell assignment that’s due the next day, and Katana regrets not being partners with literally anyone else—the minute she was called by their sensei, most of the girls in class had cheered for yet another two people who weren’t going to be partnered up with Sasuke and Ino had whipped her neck around to glare at her, as if it had been Katana’s fault. Needless to say, they barely accomplish anything in the classroom.

Katana sighs, shoots Ino a begging look that the girl doesn’t see, and asks, “Please stop looking at Sasuke.”

“Hmm?” Ino doesn’t move an inch from where she’s staring longingly at the dark-haired boy in the front row, batting pretty blue eyes as if wishing for Sasuke to miraculously look back at her. “Why, do you like him too?”

“No,” Katana says honestly, getting back to writing with a shake of her head when she realizes Ino won’t be paying attention to their work anytime soon. She gets now why Naruto hates Sasuke—if she flunks this class because her partner can’t focus, Katana will probably hate him, too. “But we need to finish this draft of the presentation.”

Ino heaves a long-suffering breath, glancing at Katana with all the annoyance she can convey. “Why _don’t_ you like Sasuke-kun?” she asks, a little snidely.

Katana winces under Ino’s tone. “I just,” she gives a helpless shrug, moving back in her seat a little when Ino’s glare intensifies. “I just don’t know him that well. We’ve never spoken.”

“So?” Ino demands, and then, much to Katana’s horror, begins listing off Sasuke’s traits. Loudly. The boy himself turns back to frown at them in irritation and Katana wants to disappear. “He’s so cool and so handsome and so smart and—”

“Okay,” Katana says, desperate to get out of the conversation. “Okay, I get it.” She doesn’t.

Ino narrows her eyes, studying her. “No, you don’t.”

“No, I don’t,” Katana sighs again. She runs a hand over her face, frustrated. “Does it matter?”

“Yes, it matters,” Ino says, as if Katana has just offended her and the entire Yamanaka clan. “Sasuke-kun is an amazing, one of a kind, very handso—oh _my god,_ you don’t know what a crush is.” Ino looks at her then, wide-eyed in shock. Her voice drops into a whisper. “You have no idea what a crush is, do you?”

“I,” Katana hesitates. Her grey eyes look uncertainly into Ino’s. “Am I supposed to?”

The bell rings, and Ino leaves with her question unanswered.

…

“What’s a crush?” Katana asks Naruto, and the boy blushes.

“It’s! It’s like—a crush is,” Naruto stammers, scratching the back of his head nervously. He glances to the side and when Katana follows his eyes, she sees Sakura. Katana raises her eyebrows.

“N-Never mind!” Naruto yells, and runs the remaining distance to the stream.

…

“What’s a crush?” Katana asks Shikamaru, and he groans.

“Don’t be troublesome.”

They go back to cloud watching.

…

“What’s a crush?” Katana asks at the dinner table, and Kakashi chokes on his miso soup.

Underneath the table where he lies on the floor, Pakkun breaks into cackles and doesn’t stop even when Kakashi kicks him. Across her, Naruto is quickly turning to the shade of red that he previously became when he looked at Sakura from a distance. Katana glares at him—she knows _he_ knows something, so why won’t he explain it properly?

“You’re too young to know,” Kakashi says hoarsely, throat still burning from the miso soup that went the wrong way. There’s horror in his expression that Katana doesn’t understand. “Stay as my innocent Katana-chan a little longer.”

…

Katana doesn’t figure out what a crush is by the end of the week, and decides that it isn’t worth knowing.

…

Katana is nine years-old when Eito-sensei, a chuunin with brown hair, brown eyes and a frown that’s almost always directed at Naruto, introduces the concept of sparring at Taijutsu class. He directs them to the grassy space outside of their classroom and makes them listen to him regale tales of many, many enemy nins defeated with only the use of Taijutsu.

“Of course, as you know,” Eito-sensei drones on, oblivious to the air of boredom that has taken over his class, “Taijutsu relies heavily on strength and stamina, thus only skilled and disciplined shinobi such as myself can truly—“

“Bet you 50 yen he’ll yap on for five more hours,” Naruto mutters under his breath.

Katana’s mouth twitches into an unwilling smile. “Naruto,” she chides, failing to mask the amusement in her voice. “You don’t have 50 yen. Pay attention.”

“I thought Taijutsu involved less talking and more punching. When’s he gonna let us spar?” Naruto whispers further in protest, and Katana stifles a snort. Sparring with Kakashi certainly never came with a long-winded, boastful lecture beforehand. She gives a minute shake of her head nonetheless, pinching the back of Naruto’s hand in a quiet reprimand.

 _Stop it,_ Katana conveys with her half-hearted glare, smiling again when Naruto sticks his tongue out at her.

“Something you want to share with the class, Naruto? Katana?”

Katana whips around to see Eito-sensei narrowing his eyes at them in anger and the rest of their class staring at them. She shrinks back, mortified at the unwanted attention and beside her, Naruto freezes at being caught. “Sorry, sensei,” Katana says, contrite. Naruto glances at her in apology. “We’ll keep quiet.”

“Yeah, we’re sorry, Eito-sensei,” Naruto repeats.

“No, you know what, come up here, Naruto,” Eito-sensei says, beckoning for Naruto with a jerk of his hand. There’s a cold glint in his eyes as he does so. “Since you’re so impatient to get our lesson started, why don’t you help me in demonstrating what to do, hm?”

Naruto’s blue eyes widen. He gives Katana an alarmed look, biting his lip, and Katana looks back at him, just as helplessly shocked. “I—“

Eito-sensei scowls deeper. “We haven’t got all day.”

Naruto staggers his way over to the front of the class in the midst of the whispers and snickering from some of their classmates. Katana hates it, hates the way Eito-sensei keeps picking on Naruto for the pettiest things, hates the way their classmates murmur about him and how their laughter sounds just a touch too pleased at Naruto being punished. From the corner of her eye, she catches Shikamaru with a frown on his face, Choji fidgeting worriedly next to him—they don’t like what’s happening either.

Once Naruto is in front, Eito-sensei takes a sparring stance and orders him to do the same. “Go on,” Eito-sensei says, ignoring the way Naruto bites his lip further and looks like he wants to be anywhere else except standing face to face with him. “I taught the class the correct fighting stance before. Surely your small brain hasn’t already forgotten it?”

There’s a spattering of mocking laughter from the class.

Katana clenches her fists, digs blunt nails forcefully into her palm.

“Sensei, I’m sorry,” Naruto says once more, short of begging. “Please, I—“

“Shinobi are not cowards, Naruto,” Eito-sensei snaps and Naruto clamps his mouth shut. “Now take your position!”

Naruto takes up the fighting stance shakily and isn’t given another second to prepare before Eito-sensei swings his leg up, pivots on his heel and kicks Naruto in the face, sending him crashing down on the dirt. Gasps sound out from the crowd of students watching, some amazed, others horrified, and Katana stares at the Naruto’s fallen figure on the ground with blood roaring in her ears and ice in her veins. Black envelops her heart.

She watches Eito-sensei straighten up with an ugly smirk on his face, gesturing at Naruto.

“And that, my dear class,” Eito-sensei drawls out, “is called a roundhouse kick.”

 _He hurt Naruto_ , Katana thinks blankly, staring at their sensei as he soaks up the nervous applause and praises coming from her classmates. Naruto is still on the ground, crumpled in a way that Katana has never witnessed from him before, defeat clear in the slump of his shoulders. A spot of blood drops from his mouth and onto the dirt, injured cheek readily swelling. _He hurt Naruto._

“Any other volunteers?” Eito-sensei asks, laughing explosively when students shake their heads a hard _no._ “No volunteers? Well then, I guess—”

Katana stands up, and everyone falls quiet. Eito-sensei frowns at her.

“I’d like to try,” Katana says, mechanical in her movements. _He hurt Naruto._ Her hands are cold by her sides, her skin prickling from the combined stares of everyone, and there’s a growing darkness in her chest. “Eito-sensei.” _He hurt Naruto._

She walks forward before Eito-sensei can say anything, and calmly pulls Naruto by his arm, standing him up. Naruto keeps his head down, shaking in what seems like bitter anger as he walks away, and Katana lets him be. Eito-sensei narrows his eyes at her.

“Katana—“ He warns.

Katana stares at him and gold flashes through her eyes. “Shinobi are not cowards,” she whispers, just loud enough for him to hear, and watches Eito-sensei grit his teeth.

“Alright everyone,” Eito-sensei declares, never taking his brown eyes off her even as he falls back to his sparring stance, and scowls when Katana mirrors him with nothing more than a blink. “This time, let me demonstrate with Katana-chan how to do a proper hook punch.”

As soon as he says it, Eito-sensei is moving in a speed respectable of any registered chuunin, charging for Katana with his fist fully pulled back—but Katana dodges, because her Tou-san has always been faster and Katana has fought him many times before but has never been deliberately hurt because of it, because _sparring was not supposed to leave you bleeding and broken, not while you’re young and still learning_ , Tou-san has said, _it’s not supposed to do actual harm when you are defenseless_ —

_—“Stand up!” Father roars and it’s a deafening, ringing sound that Katana wants to stop and she’s broken, she’s broken, why can’t he stop—_

—and then Eito-sensei’s leg comes up without warning, aiming for the ribs. Katana blocks it with a forearm, snarling viciously, overcome with fury and outrage and _black and gold and black—he’s cheating, he hurt Naruto and now he’s cheating—it calls for retribution, this writhing, wailing darkness inside, it calls for blood—_

—Katana ducks the next hasty punch sent her way, Eito-sensei swinging wildly with a desperate gnash of his teeth, and she jumps, eyes flashing black, pulls her arm back the way Kakashi has taught her and—

…

Katana breaks Eito-sensei’s nose and Kakashi’s attention gets called by the Academy.

She waits wordlessly for him to arrive, sitting on one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs outside the Principal’s Office with Naruto on the seat next to her, kicking his feet in a noisy pattern against the tiled floor as he wallows in a sulk. Inside the office, Eito-sensei’s yelling can be heard, nasally and horrible-sounding.

“It hurts,” Naruto informs Katana out of the blue and breaks the silence. “Eito-sensei is an asshole.”

Katana clenches her jaw, suddenly angry. “And you’re an idiot.”

“What?” Naruto’s head jerks up and then he’s angry, too. “Why am I an idiot? You’re the idiot!”

“You didn’t _fight back_ ,” Katana hisses.

“Yeah, ‘cause I didn’t wanna get in more trouble, genius,” Naruto snarks back, glaring at her. “You fought back, Katana-chan, and look what happened!”

And it’s true, Katana realizes, the fight and anger slowly draining out of her system. _Naruto has a point._ If he had dodged from Eito-sensei’s attack the way Katana knows he’s fully capable of, or if he had fought against their teacher, surely Eito-sensei would have found another worse way to punish Naruto. She slumps against the chair, grimacing down at the ground and cursing her lack of foresight. Naruto huffs in annoyance next to her.

“Sorry,” she tells him, reaching out a hand and sighing when Naruto takes it without hesitation. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“I told you,” Naruto only insists in reply. He gives Katana’s hand an understanding squeeze and Katana smiles weakly. “Eito-sensei is an asshole.”

“The biggest asshole,” Katana says, hushed.

Naruto nods in serious agreement. “The biggest asshole.”

“What’s all this gross talk about assholes?”

They look up in unison to see Kakashi standing before them, studying their faces with nothing more than a raised eyebrow and speaking with a casual tone. But Katana can see the steel in his spine as he moves, silent in his anger as he reaches for Naruto’s chin and turns his face gently to get a better look at his swollen cheek.

“We were talking about our jerk sensei,” Naruto chirps eagerly, expression lighting up at the sight of Kakashi. “Ne, ne, Kaka-oji-san, isn’t it unfair that he reported Katana-chan? He asked for volunteers to spar with him, after all!”

Kakashi turns to her with his one visible eye, taking in the ashes of fury in Katana’s eyes and the drying splatter of blood across her face, and he knows. He knows she almost lost control. Katana grits her jaw, shame burning a bitter path down her throat as she swallows it back. But Katana holds her ground despite the guilt, and looks back at Kakashi. _I’m not sorry,_ she thinks, bull-headed. _He hurt Naruto, and I’m not sorry for what I did._

Their stare-off is cut short as the Principal’s assistant opens the door and calls them all inside. Katana looks away first, only a little bit regretful, and walks in to the sight of Eito-sensei standing next to the Principal and glaring daggers at her. The bridge of his nose is swollen purple and red at the edges, nostrils stained with leftover blood, and though it makes her stomach turn to even look at their teacher now, Katana thinks, vindictive, _good for you._

And then Kakashi enters, closing the door beside him with a firm click, and both Eito-sensei and the Principal freeze up.

“Co-Copy Ninja Kakashi?” The Principal stutters, bug-eyed. Next to him, the rest of Eito-sensei’s face turns into a sickly shade of white and makes his broken nose stand out all the more.

“Yo,” Kakashi greets them both, visible eye crinkling pleasantly, and Katana holds her breath. _Tou-san is furious._ “Sorry for being late. Granted, someone from the Academy _did_ call for me in the middle of my writing up a mission report and I _had_ to rush through it as I worried for the safety of my child, which may ultimately bring down Hokage-sama’s anger on all of us, but yes, what can do for you today?”

“E-Er, well, that is,” the Principal begins. He catches Katana’s eyes and clears his throat. Katana looks up at him. “Katana, would you like to explain why you’re here?”

Katana clenches her fists by her sides, refusing to talk.

“Katana-chan,” Kakashi asks, sickly sweet, and leaves no room for arguments, “what did you do?”

Katana thins her lips. “I demonstrated in class how to do a proper hook punch.”

“You brat,” Eito-sensei growls at her. “That’s not why! It’s because _you broke my nose!_ ”

“With a proper hook punch,” Katana says through gritted teeth.

“Why you—!“

“Now, now,” Kakashi says, still smiling with his eye. “It’s not as if she did it without reason or consequence, hm?”

Eito-sensei frowns. “W-What?”

“What I mean is,” Kakashi clarifies, voice saccharine, “There is a nasty looking bruise on my kid’s forearm that I wonder terribly about. And you know, I _am_ very curious to learn how Naruto-kun got that swollen cheek of his. I’m sure Katana-chan will tell me later. They’re quite inseparable, these two.”

“N-Naruto?” Eito-sensei balks. “ _No._ You’re his—“

“Oh, _yes_.” Kakashi’s smile is dangerous under his mask. “Hokage-sama granted me permission to be his official guardian just this month, which means I get the absolute pleasure of meeting both of you again should I choose to file a formal complaint on his behalf.” He turns to the Principal and cocks up an eyebrow. “Are you telling me you haven’t updated your records?”

“W-We will!” The Principal promises easily, nodding fast and looks at the chuunin teacher. “Eito-sensei, surely a first time incident like this doesn’t deserve such a—“

“She broke. My. Nose,” Eito-sensei grounds out, now red in the face from anger. He makes the mistake of glaring at Katana. “Look, I don’t care who your guardian is, you _better_ apologize to me or else—“

“Or else _what_?” Kakashi narrows his eye in warning.

“Or—Or, or else,” Eito-sensei stammers, pushing through, “or else she gets a week’s suspension and a permanent mark on her school record!”

Katana’s stomach sinks.

All these months, she’d been putting in the extra effort to catch up with the rest of the honor’s list, she’d promised Kakashi she can make it, and now—

“Well, that _is_ the protocol for an offense of this nature,” the Principal tells them with regret. “But if Katana issues a proper apology, we can all just move on from this. Isn’t that right, Eito-sensei?”

Eito-sensei nods.

Kakashi doesn’t look at him. He glances down at Katana instead, and Katana looks up almost remorsefully, bracing herself—except there is none of the disappointment in Kakashi’s eye that Katana has been thinking she’ll see. There is no accusation, no anger in his look. If anything, Kakashi almost looks— _sorry,_ Katana realizes, and her heart drops to her stomach. It isn’t fair, Katana thinks and believes her Tou-san will agree, that she gets punished for her actions and Eito-sensei doesn’t for his. She straightens up and smiles at Kakashi anyway, however weakly it may seem.

“Do I make a choice, Tou-san?” she asks, watches as Kakashi gives a rueful smile in return. “I promise to make the right one.”

“Alright,” Kakashi says, and takes a step back.

Katana thinks of the honor’s list.

She thinks of the remnants of wrath that she still feels in her veins, that’s made a home out of her body, thinks with a cold, shameful rebelliousness how she’s not sorry about it at all. Eito-sensei had _hurt Naruto_ , and the thought of apologizing to him makes her throat close up. But Katana makes a choice. With a deep breath, she faces both the Principal and Eito-sensei properly. Katana bows politely to the Principal for his effort, thanks him in a soft voice for his patience in dealing with her, and then turns to Eito-sensei.

Katana scowls.

“No,” she says.

Behind her, Kakashi gives his proudest eye-smile. “Well, there you have it. Thank you for your time.” He places a warm hand on Katana’s shoulder and guides her towards the door, leaving behind the two men who stare after them, open-mouthed, as Kakashi calls, “I’ll escort Katana back to school after a week. See you!”

…

After a week, Katana comes back to school, and their teacher is now someone named Iruka-sensei.

He becomes Naruto’s favorite teacher.

(They say Eito-sensei quit before he can get fired because of an odd curse—wherever he goes, there’s the sound of a pack of dogs snarling, like they’re out to hunt him down. Katana gives Kakashi a _look,_ and her adoptive father smiles his most angelic smile.)

…

“Hey.”

Uchiha Sasuke approaches them under the maple tree at lunch, and immediately, Naruto is jumping up to shout at him, Kiba muttering _what the hell_ under his breath at the dramatic scene that unfolds, Katana letting out a long-suffering sigh alongside of him.

“Teme! What do you want?!”

“Pipe down, dobe.” Sasuke rolls his eyes and then looks down with a scowl as he crosses his arms. “I just wanted to say I’m glad Eito-sensei got fired.”

“You jer—huh, what?”

Sasuke glares. There’s a growing redness on his cheeks as he looks away again. “Dumbass. What I mean is, what he did wasn’t cool. He deserved to be fired.”

“Oh,” Naruto says, blinking rapidly in confusion at the situation he’s in. “Yeah, it wasn’t. That kick hurt like a bi—“

“Anyway,” Sasuke cuts him off, clearing his throat awkwardly. He gives Naruto another sharp look. “You’re okay now.”

It’s not a question, but Naruto nods dumbly anyway.

“Good.” Sasuke looks past Naruto and focuses on Katana. “You’re a good fighter.”

“I…” Katana trails off, and then nods just as dumbly.

Sasuke smirks. It makes his dark eyes shine, the curves of his face turning soft in amusement, and suddenly, Katana understands why Ino and every other girl has a crush on him. “See you,” Sasuke says, turning his back to them and walking away, and the three of them are left in dumbfounded silence.

Finally, Kiba snorts. “I don’t know why girls like him. He’s _so weird._ ”

…

The Uchiha massacre happens.

No one says anything about it at first—the adults are all too busy, too fast-paced in their strides, too grim-faced to speak, and their teachers are too quiet in their horror. But Katana hears the whispers. Feels the cloak of tragedy thick in the air. She takes in the empty chair beside Sakura, and Naruto counts the days that pass. Uchiha Sasuke misses school for a week. (One morning in class, Ino bursts into tears and runs to the girl’s bathroom, inconsolable.)

And then, after five days’ worth of being dispatched for shinobi duty, Kakashi comes home one night with soot on his uniform and dried blood on his hands and he sits them both down on the kitchen table. He tells them of the loss that happened, how an entire clan had been wiped away, how the shinobi had taken the lives of all but one boy named Sasuke. Naruto flinches at the mention of their classmate’s name. Kakashi says it in the most careful manner possible, says it barely louder than a whisper—he’s being gentle, Katana knows, but even the gentlest grief is still grief.

“Sasuke got lucky that night,” Kakashi murmurs and brandishes a scroll that Katana realizes she’s familiar with—it’s the summoning contract for the ninken. “But luck won’t save you every time.”

Kakashi teaches Naruto how to sign the scroll and makes Katana renew her existing blood print. He guides both of them through the seal pattern, gets them to repeat it until they both get it correctly. “When there’s danger and you can’t get me,” Kakashi tells them gravely, “or if for some reason, I cannot be there to save you, you summon the pack instead and you run. Do you understand?”

Katana and Naruto are silent as they nod.

“If I cannot be there to save you,” Kakashi repeats, voice too rough, too brittle, and Katana has never seen him to be so upset before, “you have to promise me that you will save yourselves.”

“Promise,” Katana whispers past the lump building in her throat. Naruto only stares, glassy-eyed and on the edge of breaking, so Katana holds his hand and pretends not to notice it shake. “We promise.”

“Good.”

“So it’s true then?” Naruto’s voice is a trembling, reedy thing when he finally speaks. He blinks at Kakashi slowly, as if still in disbelief. “Sasuke-teme is like me now?”

Kakashi gives a somber nod. When Naruto blinks again, the first tears make their way down his whiskered cheeks. The second ones follow quickly, and then the third, and the fourth, and then Kakashi is making his way around the table, putting an arm around Naruto’s hunched shoulders and pulling him close just as the boy chokes on a sob. For all that Naruto is loud, he is quiet when he cries. His whole body crumples with it, shuddering like a leaf as he sucks in painful breaths, and Katana watches it unfold and doesn’t let go of his hand. She watches him, this boy with too much heart and too many tears to cry for someone he doesn’t even like, and Katana is frozen in what seems like an eternity.

Katana has never known Sasuke. She has only ever spoken to him once, has never liked him the way the other girls have claimed to like him. But Katana knows Sasuke helps his mother garden every weekend—she sees him in the Uchiha backyard sometimes, on the way to the market with Kakashi, his pale fingers digging the soft dirt as he smiles up his mother. Katana knows Sasuke excels because he wants to make his father proud, knows that his favorite is his Nii-san, who Sasuke will not shut up about given half the chance. Katana does not know Sasuke—but she knows he’s kind enough to be concerned for a classmate, knows he has a sense of justice in his heart. Katana does not know Sasuke—but she knows the taste of loss and how death feels like a heavy blanket draped over your face, suffocating.

It’s only when Kakashi pulls her in against his side with his free arm that Katana realizes there are tears in her own eyes. She blinks them back. Swallows down the storm of grief brewing in her chest, and forces her lungs to work. In front of her, Naruto hiccups and holds on to their clammy hands tighter.

And Katana does the same, squeezing Naruto’s hand and pressing against her Tou-san’s warmth, and breathes.

Katana holds her family in her hands and mourns for the boy who has just lost his.

…

Katana is eleven when she tells Naruto about herself.

She wakes up from a nightmare one night, drenched in cold sweat that turns to blood with every blink, and in the corner of her eyes, she sees gold haunting her in the darkness. Somewhere down in the empty hallways, she thinks she hears her Father’s voice.

Her door slides open and Katana tenses briefly, only relaxing when she sees that it’s Naruto. Even then, she doesn’t fully let go of the tension until she does a hand sign behind her back and whispers _Kai._ (Kakashi had taught her that after she’d been kidnapped.) But in the end, it’s just Naruto—sleepy-eyed and half-awake, he drops next to Katana’s futon and crawls his way under her blankets, forcing her to share. They end up pressed together in the small space, Katana’s head pillowed in one of Naruto’s arms.

“We’re too old for this,” Katana mutters, despite the way her eyes shut in gratitude at the presence of Naruto’s warmth, chasing away the clammy feeling of her fingers as if still stained with her stepmother’s blood. “Tou-san is going to scold us for being inappropriate.”

“Don’t be dumb,” Naruto tells her around a stifled yawn. He pulls Katana in until her head is tucked under his chin. “You’re like my sister.”

“Oh,” Katana says, and blinks back the stinging in her eyes. _So stupid,_ she tells herself, _why would you cry over something like that?_

“You were thrashing around,” Naruto says. “I could hear you from my room. Couldn’t sleep.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, Katana-chan. I’m just worried.”

“There’s something wrong with me,” Katana whispers, and Naruto falls still, falls silent. “I need to tell you this because you’re important. I need to tell you this but,” Katana clenches her fists around Naruto’s shirt, forcing back the tears, “I don’t want you to be scared of me. I don’t want you to go.”

“Never,” Naruto says with a brand of certainty only he has. “Never, Katana-chan.”

Katana tells him in a rush of breath—this dark anger in her hollow bones, boiling mad, insanity induced, and hatred like liquid gold in her veins that takes over like a ghost. She tells him about the blood stains in her hands, the ones that feel like they can never be truly washed away—she doesn’t tell him how, isn’t sure of it herself, isn’t sure it isn’t going to send Naruto screaming and running—and she tells him about the voice that hisses from somewhere in her mind and how she’s terrified she’ll listen to it one day.

“Tou-san says it’s a cursed seal,” Katana croaks out, helpless, “but it doesn’t—it doesn’t feel—it feels more than that, it feels like it isn’t me but something _inside_ of me and I can’t lose control because it’ll take over like—“

“Like a monster,” Naruto continues for her. He meets her eyes, unafraid but uncertain, and says, “I have one in me, too, y’know.”

Katana loses her breath. “What?”

“All the adults say it,” Naruto mutters. “They whisper so I don’t hear it but I’m not stupid. Before I began staying with you and Kaka-oji-san, the older kids used to yell at me for having a monster inside. I think it’s the one that destroyed Konoha before and killed the Yondaime. Kyuubi. I think it talks to me, sometimes.” Naruto glances down at her, frowning. “Is it stupid to say that I’m kinda glad we’re the same?”

“No,” Katana says, shaking her head. She puts her forehead back down on Naruto’s chest. “I don’t think it’s stupid.”

“Okay.” Naruto smiles around another yawn. “Then we can be monsters together.”

“Yeah,” Katana whispers. Her eyes fall shut. “We can be.”

…

In the morning, Kakashi finds them draped over one another, sleeping through the sunrise. He pulls the blankets up a little higher around them and leaves them be.

…

Katana is twelve years-old when they graduate.

They’re two hours early to the ceremony (courtesy of Naruto) and both Katana and Kakashi are grumbling as the Academy becomes packed with people. But Naruto tears up, shaking when he finally receives his hitai-ate from Iruka-sensei himself and Kakashi’s visible eye is unbearably soft as he Naruto’s around his forehead and Katana’s around her left arm.

“I’m proud of both of you,” he says quietly, smiling underneath his mask.

Naruto full-out sobs.

Katana grins and grins until her jaw hurts.

…

The day they start out as genins, Katana gets up before dawn to polish her mother’s sword out on the deck, humming under her breath the old lullaby Kakashi had always been humming. She cleans the dark wooden sheath, tracing the silver body of a dragon carved into it, and wipes the blade until it shines. Kakashi joins her just as the first rays peek from behind the mountain range, padding towards her with quiet footsteps and sitting on the edge of the deck to mirror her position.

Katana turns to him with a smile, her sword in her arms. It’s been a while since she was able to use it, and holding it now feels like a missing limb has been reattached. “Good morning, Tou-san.”

“Good morning. You’re up early,” Kakashi observes with a teasing lilt to his voice. “Naruto’s excitement got to you?”

Katana’s smile widens. “No,” she says. “I was excited enough on my own.” She lifts her sword, just a little bit, and Kakashi makes a noise of understanding. He glances down then and when Katana follows his eyes, she sees something grey folded on his lap. Kakashi hands it to her carefully, nodding for her to open it out as soon as Katana takes it.

“It’s a gift,” Kakashi explains, studying Katana’s expression as she spreads it out to reveal what it is.

The gift turns out to be grey yukata shirt—designed for easy, swift movements, the material definitely made for combat, Katana notes—plain and a solid color all throughout, save for the small Hatake clan sign embroidered at the back. A simple black obi comes with it.

“Just a little something you can put over your usual clothes. I figured you needed something that provides more protection than just your black shirt and the mesh underneath,” he goes on to say as Katana runs her hands through the clothing, fingers tracing the Hatake emblem with something like wonder. Kakashi scratches at his bare face a little uncertainly. “It’s probably not the most feminine thing to wear, I know, but—“

“It’s great,” Katana whispers. When she looks up at him, her eyes are bright and her grin is breathless with delight. “I’ll wear it. Thank you.”

Kakashi’s face softens into small smile. “You’re welcome, kiddo.”

…

“Ne, ne, you look like a cool samurai, Katana-chan.”

“Thanks, Naruto.”

Katana can’t keep the smile off her face as they walk towards Academy. For once, she feels like she belongs instead of sticking out, her clothes making her blend in seamlessly among the crowd of new genins as she and Naruto make their way up to their old classroom. Most of their classmates are already there as they enter, and immediately Naruto’s eyes focus to where Sakura is sat next to Sasuke.

“Bet you 50 yen I’ll be Sakura’s teammate,” Naruto tells her, and Katana hums in consideration. Naruto had looked at Sakura when they were seven, had called her pretty, and hadn’t gotten over his crush ever since, Katana knows. (More importantly, Katana understands what a crush means now.)

She glances at the seat next to Sakura where Sasuke is busy brooding, and glances at Naruto. “Make it a 100 yen,” Katana mutters. “I bet you she’ll be teammates with Sasuke instead.”

Naruto clutches his heart as they sit down. “Why would you say something like that?” he whines and Katana shakes her head, smiling. “Who do you want for your team, Katana-chan?”

Katana looks at him and mulls the question over. “I don’t know,” she admits after a minute, blinking. “I guess anyone would do.”

Naruto wrinkles his nose. “Even Kiba, who stinks like a dog?”

“We’re friends with Kiba, don’t be mean.”

“Yeah, but still.”

Katana sighs, shaking her head again. “I just want a normal team. A team that isn’t flashy,” she says, and it’s true. Katana feels sick of the attention somehow, sick of the weird glances and the whispering. Though she knows she can never quite escape it, given the way she looks and the odd circumstances from which she’d arrived at Konoha, at the very least, a normal team would serve as a buffer from prying eyes. She smiles at Naruto, hopeful. “A peaceful team,” she says.

“I guess we can’t be teammates, ‘ttebayo,” Naruto grins at her, and Katana huffs out a laugh. “My team will be the weirdest, flashiest, bestest—“

“Bestest isn’t a word.”

“—genin team ever,” Naruto claims, proud of himself. “We’ll be legends, and then I’m going to be Hokage.”

“Of course you are,” Katana tells him, meaning every word of it.

When Iruka-sensei finally enters, the class bursts into grateful applause and cheers. Iruka-sensei laughs in embarrassment even when he grins proudly at all of them, waving off the clapping. “Alright, down to business!” He briefs them about being divided into squads, each squad having a jounin sensei to look after them, and then Iruka-sensei begins rattling off the assignments.

“Team 4! Watanabe Haru, Sato Akio, and Yamamoto Daiki!”

“Team 5! Okada Mitsue, Goto Toshiro, and Hasegawa Kaiya!”

“Team 6! Fujiwara Tomo, Endo Noriko, and Ueno Sora!”

“Team 7!” Iruka-sensei calls out with the biggest grin, unable to help himself. “Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura—“

From beside her, Naruto jumps up in glee, shouting, and Katana mourns the 100 yen she lost. Sakura’s hissed complaints can be heard from the next row.

“—and Uchiha Sasuke.”

There’s uproar all around the classroom as the girls express their dismay in various forms. Sakura shrieks giddily, undeterred by the glares, and Naruto slumps back down to his seat with a groan. Katana thinks about their bet, confused as to how it works now.

In front of them, Iruka-sensei falls into silence. He stares with his mouth open and brows furrowed, muttering under his breath as he reads and rereads something in the paper he’s holding, and then looks up with a grimace that makes everyone in the class shut up. Iruka-sensei scans the room with his eyes.

“What’s going on?” someone from the back row asks, and another shushes them.

“Team 7,” Iruka-sensei repeats, frowning as if his own voice confuses him, “will be a four-man team, as per the Hokage’s direct orders. I stand corrected.” The class is quiet as he says this, too stunned to cause a commotion. From where she sits, Katana shifts ever so slightly. She ignores the feeling of dread fluttering around in her stomach. “The team will be: Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke and,” Iruka-sensei hesitates, and his gaze lands on Katana.

All eyes in the room turn to her, and Katana holds her breath, clutches the hilt of her sword tight. Her skin prickles uncomfortably under the attention, and Naruto’s words come to her mind like a traumatizing flashback— _“the weirdest, flashiest, bestest genin team ever”._

 _No,_ Katana thinks, horrified, _oh dear god, no._

“Hatake Katana.”


	8. The meaning of team

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team is…weird.
> 
> Sasuke and Naruto are at each other’s throats all the time, Sakura keeps on shouting at them to stop but loses her voice when Sasuke so much as looks at her, Kakashi apologizes too many times in a day for the trouble they inevitably bring, and Katana looks at them blankly from a distance and tries to pretend she doesn’t know them when asked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a trivia for you guys! In Japan, they consider 4 to be an unlucky number because it sounds like death (shi).

 

_“Team 7 will be a four-man team, as per the Hokage’s direct orders. I stand corrected. The team will be: Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke and,” Iruka-sensei looks right at her, baffled beyond comprehension, “Hatake Katana.”_

_The room explodes into chaos, genins yelling left and right. Iruka-sensei tries to calm them all down with his angry shouting but even he cannot compete with the noise of thirty plus genins combined._

_“They can’t do that!”_

_“—put all of the good ones together! That’s unfai—“_

_“—where’d Hatake come from anyway? She doesn’t even—“_

_“—fit in. How will they fit in—“_

_“—not jealous. Four is an unlucky number. Something bad—“_

_“—and terrible—“_

_“—will definitely—“_

_“—happen.”_

…

Their jounin sensei is late. This is not the problem.

“Sensei is late,” Naruto grumps out just as much. “What’s taking sensei so long?”

He repeats this sentiment every couple of minutes, in a voice that gets whinier and whinier every time he says it, and none of the three other people he’s sharing the room with acknowledges him. Sasuke sits in the middle row with elbows on the desk and his hands locked in front of his face, looking very grave. Sakura has become bored with sweeping the room—she’s in front now, wiping the chalkboard clean, and every so often she glances back to check whether Sasuke is looking at her. He isn’t.

Katana sits at the corner to watch all of this, and wills the floor to swallow her alive.

The problem is this—she’s stuck in an empty classroom with the volatile Uchiha, the temperamental Haruno Sakura, and Naruto, who becomes an absolute pest when boredom takes over. And then there’s her—Hatake Katana, who has had half her graduating class looking at her again like they can’t figure her out, like she’s a specimen under a microscope for curious eyes to look at, and Katana just wants to stop sticking out like a sore thumb.

The problem is this—No one is talking save for Naruto. When Katana had humored him earlier, the Uchiha had scoffed at them both for what he apparently deemed to be “idiotic conversation”, and Naruto had threatened to start a fistfight, provoking Sakura into shrieking at him as she defended Sasuke’s honor. Katana didn’t speak again, after that.

“Why do you think sensei is late?” Naruto asks again, and Katana has half a mind to try and answer, if only to make him stop asking, but she doesn’t, blinking at empty air instead.

 _Nothing can be worse than this,_ Katana thinks. Her ears are still ringing with Iruka-sensei’s voice calling out her name, still ringing with her classmates’ various outbursts after it. It’s not her fault, she knows, but somehow it feels like it is. _There is absolutely no way it can be worse than this. If Naruto asks another question, I might go insane._

“Ne, ne,” Naruto calls out. In the middle row, Sasuke’s fingers twitch in the slightest. Katana blinks again.

_Or maybe Sasuke will._

Naruto loudly thumps a fist against the closest desk. “Oh! Do you think sensei abandoned—“

“SHUT UP,” Sakura roars in irritation, patience snapping in half once more, and she hurls the chalkboard eraser right at Naruto like a deadly weapon. It hits him square in the face and he goes down with a yelp. Katana winces. Sasuke predictably does not react.

“S-Sakura-chan,” Naruto begins as he sits up, clutching his nose. He looks more emotionally hurt than anything. “That hur—“

“Naruto,” Katana finally sighs. She gestures for him to sit down next to her, and Naruto pouts in reply.

“ _Fine_ , I’ll settle down,” Naruto groans, elongating the syllables. Sakura turns to glare at him, and Katana braces herself for another projectile. Thankfully, it seems like there are no more chalkboard erasers available for throwing. “But I’m setting up a trap!”

Katana scowls.

By the board, Sakura puts her hands on her hips and raises her eyebrows. “A trap? What are you talking about?”

Naruto picks up the fallen eraser and drags a chair towards the doorway, standing on it to place the eraser at the very top, stuck in the gap between the sliding door and the wall as a simple booby trap. Sakura suppresses a grin as she realizes his plan. Katana just looks at him in despair.

“Naruto,” Katana says, pained, and thinks once again, _nothing can be worse than this_. “This is a bad idea.”

“It’s revenge!” Naruto crows, no doubt encouraged by the twinkle in Sakura’s eyes. “It’s a wonderful idea!”

“It’s an idiotic idea,” Sasuke snaps, joining the conversation so suddenly. Sakura quickly clears her face of any excitement, and Naruto sticks his tongue out at him. “Our sensei is jounin. They wouldn’t fall for—“

The door slides open. All of them turn to look at it quickly, just in time to watch the eraser fall and bounce off the silver head of—

Kakashi sighs. “Naruto.”

“K-Kaka-oji-san?!” Naruto points with a shaking finger, turning red.

Sasuke and Sakura both turn to look at Naruto in disbelief. “Oji-san?!”

Katana looks at her adoptive father from the doorway, feeling faint, and wonders whether this is one of her elaborate nightmares. Perhaps she’d fallen asleep as Iruka-sensei was giving the team assignments. Perhaps she’d fallen asleep long before that, had fallen asleep polishing her sword, and this is her dream haunting her so she would wake up—except Kakashi looks at her then, and waves.

“Yo, Katana-chan.”

Katana waves back weakly. “Hi, Tou-san.”

Sasuke and Sakura whirl around with matching expressions of horror. “ _Tou-san?!_ ”

 _Ah, it got worse,_ Katana thinks, stupefied. The urge to lie down on the floor until it absorbs her is strong. _It got so much worse._

…

They make their introductions at the rooftop.

Kakashi breezes through his introduction with his usual laidback charm, telling them everything and nothing all at once as his eye curves into a smile. They’re his very first genin team, he says, and he’s looking forward to passing them—or failing them, if that’s what they deserve. Sakura asks if he’s joking. From the look in his eye, Katana knows he absolutely isn’t.

Naruto’s introduction is mostly just talking about ramen (in addition to claiming that he’ll be the best among them), and Sakura’s is mostly just talking about Sasuke in between giggles. Sasuke talks just long enough for all of them to discover that he’s planning someone’s murder, and it goes even further downhill from there.

It’s a strange combination of personalities, and it shouldn’t work, and it doesn’t.

Naruto is already picking a fight with Sasuke as the other boy sneers thinly veiled threats at him, and Sakura’s attempts to intervene mostly just consists of hitting Naruto until he lays off Sasuke. Not one of them pays attention to Katana’s introduction—not even Naruto, who is apparently too busy impressing Sakura and bickering with Sasuke that he forgets about his other friend—so Katana settles for whispering nonsense under her breath, ignoring the pointed look that Kakashi sends her.

“You know,” Kakashi begins, and they fall into silence—Naruto freezes from where he’s been shouting at Sasuke, and Sakura stops from where she’s been hitting Naruto. Katana stops mumbling. “I really don’t like you guys.”

All four of them wince.

“Well, it’s not like I can fail you on the grounds of dislike,” Kakashi hums. “So tomorrow, we’re going to meet at the training grounds at dawn for a survival test.”

“A survival test?” Sasuke echoes suspiciously.

Sakura frowns. “But—But sensei! We’ve already done those back in the Academy.”

“I bet you have.” Kakashi’s eye curves into a smile that both Katana and Naruto know to be the opposite of pleasant. It’s utterly chilling that even Katana straightens up a little. “And back in the Academy you’ll go, if you fail my test.”

Naruto reacts explosively, provoking another threat from Sasuke which makes Sakura scream at Naruto. Kakashi watches it all with a satisfied grin underneath his mask.

“Oh, and by the way. Don’t eat breakfast. You might throw up.”

From the end of the line, Katana sighs.

…

The survival test turns out to be a test from Hell—they all meet at the training grounds before the sun has even risen and immediately, Kakashi has all of them running 50 laps around the perimeter of place. “To shake off that sleepiness,” he tells them gleefully, and then sends Bull to chase after them when Naruto tries to cheat. At the end of it, they’re all weak-kneed and panting—even Sasuke, who doesn’t help his breathing by pretending like he isn’t affected.

And then Kakashi declares, “Alright, let’s begin.”

“ _Begin_?!” Naruto shouts from where he’s bent over in effort, sweating buckets. “That wasn’t the test?!”

“Oh, that?” Kakashi smiles. “That was the warm-up.” He takes out a timer set until noon and puts it down on the nearest tree stump before brandishing three silver bells. “Your task is simple—do everything to get one of these bells from me before lunch and you pass. If you fail to get one, I’ll tie you to one of these posts,” Kakashi jerks his thumb to the four wooden posts behind him, “and I’ll make you watch as I eat my lunch.”

At the mention of food, someone’s stomach growls. None of them look at each other to confirm whose it is but it makes Kakashi grin like a shark underneath his mask.

Sasuke clears his throat.

“That’s it?” He asks, bored, and Sakura stares at him in awe. Kakashi raises an eyebrow. “Sounds easy enough.”

 _No, it isn’t,_ Katana thinks grimly, just as Naruto screams, “Don’t be cocky, you asshole!”

“Maa,” Kakashi remarks as he ties the bells securely on his hip, “a big head doesn’t look pretty on you, Sasuke-kun. But I am curious to see how the Academy’s Top One will overcome this challenge. Then again, who’s to say you can overcome it? Maybe Top Two Haruno Sakura might even beat you in this test. You all best be on your guard if you don’t want to go back to the Academy.”

Sasuke scowls. From his side, Sakura’s face turns white as a sheet.

“We can fight together,” Katana murmurs under her breath, and Naruto’s eyes turn to her. He gives an almost invisible nod, and Katana smiles just as briefly.

“We start on my count,” Kakashi says then. “Ready, set—“

All four of them brace themselves. With her eyes, Katana signals to the bushes in the far left.

“—go!”

Three of them disappear.

Naruto charges in head-on with a yell.

…

Katana ends up sharing the same hiding spot with Sakura, both of them hidden low with their bodies flat on the ground. From behind the thick bushes, they look on as Naruto does the _Kage Bunshin_ —a trick Kakashi had taught him during their Academy days, Katana remembers—and makes all of the shadow clones attack at once, pinning Kakashi to where he stands and aiming a punch to his face.

Katana tries not to grimace as she watches, but it’s a difficult thing—they could have attacked _together._ Naruto has broken his word, and now in the open field, he fights just to get caught in Kakashi’s substitution jutsu and end up punching one of his clones instead. Katana grits her teeth. _Dammit, Naruto._

“This is impossible,” Sakura whispers then, breaking the silence, and Katana turns to her in alarm. It’s the first time that Sakura has spoken to her since they’ve been classmates in the Academy. For most of the years she’s known Sakura, the girl has never talked to her, much less initiated an actual conversation, and the newness of it feels…weird. She sounds nothing like the girl who likes to shout at Naruto, nothing like the girl who squeals giddily about Sasuke. “He’s a jounin. We can’t possibly beat him in strength.”

Sakura turns to her, and Katana pauses. There’s a sickly sort of pallor to Sakura’s usually lively face, and Katana takes note of the way her shoulders shiver.

“Sakura,” Katana asks carefully, “are you okay?”

“Huh?”

“You’re shaking.”

Sakura smiles weakly. “I’m on a diet. Didn’t eat dinner last night.”

Katana frowns in concern. Diets aren’t a thing with shinobi—or kunoichi, for that matter. “Will you be able to fight?”

“Even if I had dinner, I don’t think I can fight Kakashi-sensei,” Sakura jokes with soft laugh that doesn’t match the nervousness in her eyes. She gives Katana another forced smile that drops as soon as she turns her attention back to the open field. “Naruto is an _idiot!_ ”

Katana jerks back to the scene to find Naruto dangling upside down a tree branch by a rope, Kakashi standing over him as he scolds the boy in a dry tone. “Shit,” Katana curses, clenching fistfuls of grass underneath her palm. With a scowl, Katana thinks, _Tou-san isn’t joking around today._

She breathes in, and thinks, _Naruto is an idiot who deserves this for leaving me. I won’t save him._

Breathes out, and curses herself for thinking, _I’m gonna save him anyway._

She turns to give Sakura an apologetic look. “I’m going in.”

“Right.” Sakura nods easily. “Can I join you?”

Katana blinks. “What?”

“Can I join you?” Sakura repeats, insistent this time. There’s a spark of understanding in her wide eyes. “I don’t think we can beat Sensei alone. We’re set up to fail if we do. I mean, sure, there are only three bells. One of us won’t get one in the end. But maybe, if we outnumber him—“

“—we might have a chance,” Katana continues, and Sakura grins because of course, Sakura isn’t called a genius for nothing. Katana stares as the pink-haired girl keeps grinning at her, and hesitantly, Katana smiles back. “Okay,” she says. “We do this together. Do you have a plan?”

“We need a diversion.” Sakura takes out a kunai from the holster by her hip. Her grip trembles around the handle—whether it’s from nervousness or hunger or the two combined, Katana doesn’t know. “One of us needs to take Sensei’s attention off Naruto while the other cuts him free.” She glances down at Katana’s sword and then back up at her. “Are you any good with that?”

Katana nods.

“Okay.” Sakura bites her lip. Something akin to anxiety flashes through her eyes as she glances at Kakashi’s form from afar. “Do I—are you—I mean, can you be the diversion?”

“I can do it,” Katana says. “I just need to buy you time, right?”

Sakura sighs, adjusting her hold on the kunai. “That’s the plan. Maybe it’s too simple—”

“It’ll work.”

Katana smiles at her for the last time before her gaze turns back to the field. Kakashi is _still_ scolding Naruto, and it feels just a bit too long now for it to be unintentional. She holds back the building nerves, tamps down on the urge to flare her chakra as she draws her sword quietly. Even the slightest noise will blow their cover, Katana knows, if Kakashi isn’t aware of them by now. There’s a reason her Tou-san had been in ANBU before.

“Ready?” Katana asks.

Sakura takes a breath. “Ready.”

Katana pushes herself up and runs out into the open, gunning for Kakashi with the sword in her hand. “Katana-chan!” Naruto shouts as soon as he sees her, wriggling violently from where he’s still tied and trying to tug his feet free from the restraints. Kakashi turns, the surprise ruined, and immediately, Katana understands why Sakura always has the urge to scream at Naruto. “Katana-chan, come on!”

It’s then that a barrage of shuriken and kunai rain down from the opposite side of the field, aimed towards Kakashi, and Katana skids into a hasty stop just in time to watch Kakashi do another substitution jutsu and disappear, all the weapons hitting a log instead.

 _Dammit, Sasuke!_ Katana glares to where the attack came from, hearing only the rustle of leaves as Sasuke runs away with his hiding spot now revealed. Naruto is dangling only mere meters away from her, but it’s quiet all of a sudden, too quiet for it to be safe, and Katana doesn’t know whether to push through or retreat. She grits her teeth, turning to look back. “Sakura—“

And her stomach drops.

Sakura isn’t there anymore. Katana catches the barest glimpses of her teammate’s red dress as she runs away from the field and towards Sasuke’s direction, and Katana swallows down the taste of bitter disappointment. _Of course,_ she thinks again. Sakura isn’t Sakura if she isn’t always trotting behind Uchiha Sasuke.

When Katana turns once more, she barely has time to raise her sword in defense as Kakashi throws a kunai at her direction. The resulting collision is an angry, grating noise, and Katana clenches her teeth in frustration as the kunai drops uselessly to the ground. “Tou-san,” Katana begins, but then Kakashi is there in a blink, leg pulled back to do a side kick and Katana jumps back before she’s caught by it. “Wait, Tou-san—“

“Sensei,” Kakashi corrects coolly, swiping at her with a fist. She dodges and retaliates with a sharp swing of her sword that sends Kakashi leaping a distance away. “Don’t let your guard down. You can’t tell the enemy to wait.” Kakashi pauses in consideration. “Well, you can, but I doubt they’ll listen.”

“It’ll shock them, so it might work,” Katana huffs, and then Naruto yells for her again. Katana whips around to glare at him. “Would you _wait_?”

“I’m sorry!” Naruto shouts back guiltily. “I misunderstood the plan!”

“You left me!”

Kakashi snorts.

“Katana-chan, _I said I’m sorry!_ ” Naruto wails from the tree. “Come on!”

Irritated, Katana throws her sword straight into the trunk, Naruto finally falling down with a yelp as the rope snaps. He yanks the sword from the bark and starts cutting himself free, and Kakashi chuckles.

Katana heaves a breath as she takes out a kunai. She can feel the ache in her chest slowly going away at the sound of Kakashi’s laughter, and her mouth twists into a small smile despite what took place with Naruto, and then with Sakura. The smile falls away quickly as Kakashi runs at her like lightning, kunai out and clashing heavily with her own. He forces her back into staggering, and when Katana looks up, Kakashi’s lone eye is glinting with challenge.

_Oh._

Just like that, she shoves him back full force and slashes at his chest, ducking to avoid a jab and swinging her leg up in a kick. It sets a brutal pace of exchanged hits between them, all swift punches and merciless kicks and deadly swipes from their kunai. Katana realizes too late that she’s caught in a disadvantage—her knees are already creaking from the exhaustion of their early run and her reflexes are getting slower by the moment, vision blurring at split seconds. Unlike them, Kakashi probably didn’t skip breakfast at all.

Kakashi’s foot catches both her ankles and she falls down on the ground with a thud. Katana sits up a little too late, eyes wide as she sees Kakashi doing the Snake hand seal for an earth jutsu—

—and then Naruto is jumping on Kakashi’s back with a battle cry, forcing the jounin to drop his hands as he steadies himself with the added weight. More Naruto clones pile up on Kakashi, one of them throwing Katana her sword back, and then Sasuke is running out of the bushes, Sakura right by his heels, just as Katana is standing up. Katana whirls around in wide-eyed shock.

“Sakura-chan!” Naruto calls happily.

Instead of answering, Sakura shouts, “That’s not Kakashi-sensei!” and throws a shuriken to the man beneath the pile. He disappears with a puff of smoke. _A shadow clone._ Katana grits her teeth and looks up to the trees. Naruto dispels his own shadow clones and looks to the right, Sasuke to the left, and Sakura turns her back to them and looks at the direction she came from—but Kakashi is nowhere to be found. And then from below them, from underneath the dirt they’re standing on, Kakashi’s voice echoes out, “ _Doton: Shinjū Zanshu no Jutsu!_ ”

Katana squeezes her eyes shut. Naruto swears. “Oh _fuc_ —“

And the timer rings just as they’re all pulled under.

…

They don’t get the bells.

Instead, they get tied to their respective posts and get a very harsh, very thorough list of everything they did wrong—

_“Shinobi normally don’t announce their presence, Naruto.”_

_“Why would you let an enemy nin provoke you, Katana?”_

_“Sakura, running out from your comrades is a bad habit to form.”_

Kakashi turns to Sasuke and cocks up an eyebrow. “I thought you said this test was easy enough,” he recalls, voice as dry as chipping wall paint, and Naruto breaks into hysterical laughter until Sasuke hisses violent promises at him. For once, Katana notes that Sakura doesn’t try to intervene, or shout at Naruto to stop. The other girl looks down instead, heartbreak painted in the expression that she keeps trying to hide from everyone else. Katana purses her lips and says nothing. Tries not to feel anything about it, either.

Her thoughts are cut short as Kakashi clears his throat. “For a moment back there, you almost had me believing that you understood the point of this test. Tell me you’re at least aware of why I’m making you do this. Naruto?” He glances at Naruto, and the boy blinks at him.

“Uh,” Naruto tilts his head. “A test of strength?”

“ _Dumbass,_ ” Sasuke snaps. “If it was about strength, no one would win over him. It’s obviously a test of strategy!”

“No one’s gonna win over him with that either! And don’t call me dumbass, _dumbass_!”

“Well,” Kakashi sighs dispassionately. “They’re both wrong. Sakura?”

“I—,” Sakura stutters out, face flushing. She gives Sasuke a guilty look before answering, and the boy glares down at the ground. “A…A test of doing our best?” She winces as the words leave her mouth.

“It’s teamwork,” Katana says quietly, and all her teammates turn to look at her—Sasuke and Naruto in confusion, Sakura in embarrassment. “Sakura knew the answer earlier. She told me.”

Finally, Kakashi’s face softens. “Bingo,” he says, and straightens up with another heavy sigh. “If all of you had attacked all at once, you would’ve had half a chance of getting a bell. As it is, Naruto attacked by himself without a plan, Katana attacked with a half-assed one, Sakura deviated from the half-assed plan, and you,” Kakashi narrows his eye at Sasuke, who grimaces back at him. “Are you really so arrogant as to believe all your teammates are beneath you?”

Sasuke doesn’t answer but he hides the tremble of his mouth by looking back down on the ground.

“I should send you all back to the Academy,” Kakashi thinks aloud even as Naruto’s lip wobbles and Katana and Sakura’s expressions fall.

“But,” he continues, striding towards the tree stump and picking up the two bento boxes that were hidden behind it. “I’m going to give you one last chance to prove yourselves.” Kakashi looks at both Katana and Sakura as he gives them the lunch boxes and then makes a quick work of untying them. “Eat up and rest. After this, you’ll be given another three hours to take the bells from me. Oh, and,” his expression darkens, “neither of the boys get to eat. Whoever breaks this rule and feeds them will fail immediately.”

Kakashi gives Katana a pointed look of warning.

“Yes, sensei,” Katana says blankly. She stares after him even as he disappears.

…

Katana feeds Naruto, and Sakura’s mouth falls open.

The blonde boy takes it without thought, as if almost on reflex, and then tries to spit it back out in panic when it dawns on him. Katana slaps a hand to close his mouth, glaring. “Hurry,” she hisses, and stares at him until he chews.

“You’ll get in trouble,” Sakura whispers, wide-eyed, as Katana offers a bite to Sasuke next. But even as Sakura says it, her hands are picking up the chopsticks and feeding another piece to Naruto, who takes it all too happily. “We’re both in trouble. We’re going to fail.”

“We’re going to fail anyway if they don’t eat,” Katana says, picking up rice for Sasuke. The boy nods mechanically in agreement as he chews. “We can’t take Tou—Kakashi-sensei by with only two of us at full strength.”

“If Naruto and I are weak,” Sasuke says, speaking for the first time since Kakashi went away, “then we’re ineffective. That hurts the team and jeopardizes the mission.” He looks at Sakura, and all of them fall quiet. “Sorry,” Sasuke murmurs grudgingly, and Katana sees Sakura’s eyes tearing up. The pink-haired girl sniffs, and shakes her head.

“I’m sorry I told you to give up, Sasuke-kun.”

Katana looks away from them and feeds Naruto a big piece so he won’t say anything.

“Anyway,” Sasuke says, more clearly. He gestures for Sakura to keep on eating. “We need to plan ahead. I still have traps set up from when you guys were fighting him.”

“Think we can lure him there?” Katana asks, and picks up a piece for Naruto.

Kakashi is there on the next blink, staring down at all of them.

Sakura drops her chopsticks and shrieks.

Katana’s arm freezes in mid-air and Sasuke and Naruto both grit their teeth.

“What _have I told you_?” Kakashi demands, visible eye narrowing in at Katana. He looms over them with a dark aura, scowling when Katana stands her ground. “You broke the rules—“

“We’re a team!” Naruto shouts from where he’s tied up, taking the attention away from Katana. He wriggles around angrily. “If you punish her, you punish all of us!”

Kakashi furrows his eyebrows, glaring at the other two. Sakura squeaks under his look, but Sasuke holds his gaze steady, fists clenched by his sides. “Is that so?”

“Yes,” Sasuke grounds out, staring him down.

“Yes!” Sakura’s voice wavers but even she glares back at Kakashi. “You said what we needed was teamwork. A-And this! This is teamwork!”

“You know, in the shinobi world, those who break the rules are scum.” Kakashi’s face is unreadable as he reaches out a hand for Katana. She braces herself, clenching her jaw, and all her teammates watch in dread.

The hand goes down, and pats her on the head.

“But those who abandon their comrades are worse than scum.”

Katana blinks. When they all collectively look up, Kakashi is beaming at them proudly.

“Alright, you rule-breaking troublemakers,” he declares. “You all pass!”

…

Their series of D-rank missions begin the week following the bell test, just after they had taken their team picture, and really, calling it D-rank missions were an overstatement, Katana thinks. It’s more of a series of contained disasters, one after the other—catching the Daimyo’s wife’s demon cat Tora, only for it to scratch Sakura, bite Katana, and run away again; wiping clean all the windows of a civilian’s compound, only to break a window when Sasuke shoved Naruto too hard; or delivering crates of fresh flowers to the vendors of the local market only for Naruto to end up being chased by a mob of angry hornets when he’d disturbed their nest. While the missions themselves are successful in the end, their teamwork remains stilted at best and non-existent at worst, making the bell test seem like a fluke after all.

The team is…weird.

Sasuke and Naruto are at each other’s throats all the time, Sakura keeps on shouting at them to stop but loses her voice when Sasuke so much as looks at her, Kakashi apologizes too many times in a day for the trouble they inevitably bring, and Katana looks at them blankly from a distance and tries to pretend she doesn’t know them when asked.

Sometimes, Katana catches Kakashi’s expression—the one where his eye becomes glassy and unfocused in the middle of a screaming match between Sasuke and Naruto, as if Kakashi is attempting to transport himself to another dimension through sheer willpower—and Katana wonders if he regrets passing them.

But there are good days, too.

Like the day they first ate together at Ichiraku and almost got kicked out when Naruto challenged Sasuke to an eating contest far too loudly. Or the time that they had fought against Kakashi and had successfully pinned him down after sparring with him for hours—Katana half-suspects that he had let them win. He treated them to ice cream, too, that day.

There are times when Sasuke is thoughtful instead of waspish, when he smirks and snarks back at Naruto like their bickering is a silly game instead of active provocation, when he talks to Sakura with a smile and listens to Kakashi openly and helps Katana in her tasks without the need to say something insulting. It reminds Katana of the boy in her past she had spoken to exactly once, the one with happy dark eyes and genuine smiles.

There are moments when Sakura forgets about Sasuke, when she forgets to be proper and demure and forgets her diet and forgets that she’s not supposed to like Naruto. She laughs loudly at Naruto’s jokes instead and grins at Sasuke without blushing and pulls at Katana’s hand to show her the jutsu she’s learned from reading at the library. There are moments when Sakura forgets what she tells herself she’s supposed to be and becomes who she is.

And then, there are days when Katana’s mind is quiet. The voices of their classmates—accusatory and bitter—are gone, and she doesn’t have to remind herself that she’s part of Team 7 in order to believe it. She knows what others think, hears their whispers when their teams pass by each other on the streets—that Team 7 consists of only Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura, and Uchiha Sasuke.

That Hatake Katana is just a name clumsily tacked on at the very end, like an afterthought.

Like a mistake.

She knows this by heart, wonders about it on most days.

But some days, Sasuke helps her in babysitting the chief counselor’s son with nothing more than grunt of complaint. Some days, Kakashi doesn’t apologize for them. Some days, Sakura tugs at her hand like they haven’t been strangers for most of their lives, like they’ve been friends the way Ino and Sakura were once friends, and tells Katana about her dreams for the future. Some days, Naruto grins at her, like the sun, and the thought of not actually belonging with them hurts more.

…

“Why am I the fourth member?”

She asks him this in the middle of sparring as the sun beats down on them. By the side, Sasuke and Naruto are practicing their tree climbing. Sakura is on the nearby pond doing water walking drills, having long since surpassed all of them in terms of chakra control. There is no one there to witness them in the open field, no one there to listen, but Katana still watches as Kakashi hesitates on his next step, suddenly conflicted.

Katana throws a punch to his face.

Kakashi avoids it easily enough despite his distraction, and he huffs out a low laugh. “Ne, Katana-chan. That’s cheating.”

Katana doesn’t laugh. “Is it because I’m still your mission?” She asks next as she throws another hit that he dodges, and there it is again, the pained expression crossing Kakashi’s features, going away as quickly as it came. Katana steels herself, holds her breath steady. She doesn’t allow her hands to quiver despite the drop of a stone in her chest. “Is it, sensei?”

“You know that’s not how I see you,” Kakashi says, and Katana jumps when he crouches down fast to sweep her off her feet. “And you don’t have to call me sensei when we’re alone.”

“But that’s how they see me, don’t they?” Katana blocks his punch with a forearm, the movement hasty with frustration. The next swing of her arm goes too wide, all power and not enough control. Kakashi catches it in his palm, and he doesn’t let go. Katana kicks upwards, and he blocks that too. “That’s how the Hokage sees me, doesn’t he? Is that why he assigned me to your team, Tou-san?”

“Katana.”

“Tell me. Am I not good enough to be your child yet?”

“Katana—“

“Am I not good enough to be a member of a team? Do I always have to be treated _like an outsider_ —“

“ _Katana_ ,” Kakashi grounds out, and it’s only then that Katana realizes that they’ve stopped sparring. Instead, she’s breathing with effort, lungs burning hot and cold at the same time, and Kakashi is still holding her fist in his hand. _I’m shaking,_ Katana realizes with belated disappointment, and she clenches her teeth. Kakashi tugs her close—she goes into his arms pathetically, like the lost child she’s always been and has never stopped being, and when Katana drops her head against his chest, it feels like admitting defeat.

“People may never stop seeing you as someone different.” Kakashi brings a hand down on her head softly, the echo of an apology heavy in his voice, and Katana blinks back the stinging of her eyes. “They may never stop treating you differently, either. But the people who matter now, and the people who will matter to you someday, won’t even consider what others think of you.” He brushes a careful hand through her hair. “Why should it matter what others say, when your teammates and I know better?”

Katana worries her lip. “Do you?”

“Of course I do,” Kakashi says, pulling back to look at Katana in the eye. “I know that you’re my daughter, no matter what people think. I know that you belong in this team as much as Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke do. I also know that you’re a crybaby who needs to practice her tree climbing skills.”

Katana kicks him in the shin.

Kakashi chuckles, and pulls her into one last hug.

“I don’t want to be a fourth member anymore,” Katana says, words muffled against the fabric of Kakashi’s shirt—she sounds like a whining kid, and doesn’t have to look up to know that Kakashi is probably grinning down at her. “I’m always the one getting noticed by the other teams.”

Kakashi hums. “They’re just jealous that there are four of you and you guys outnumber them in a fight.”

“Four is unlucky.”

“Well, no one’s died yet, so I think we’re safe from that particular superstition.”

“Kaka-sensei!” Naruto bounds towards them, tackling them both in a hug before they can escape. Katana lets out a weak laugh as her adoptive father groans. “Did you make Katana-chan cry?!”

“No—“

“Group hug!” Sakura gasps.

They all whirl around to look at her and Sasuke approaching. Immediately, Sakura runs for the other side and copies Naruto, embracing them as much as her arms can stretch with a playful grin on her face. The four of them turn to Sasuke then, and the boy moves to run far too late—Naruto yanks him into the hug before he can escape, and the ensuing struggle makes Sakura burst out laughing and makes Kakashi look skywards for help.

“Let me go, _dobe!_ ”

“Stop struggling, Sasuke-teme!”

“Alright, you brats,” Kakashi calls out with far too much resigned fondness and not an ounce of irritation in his voice. The ache in Katana’s chest eases just a little. “Enough of this cute nonsense. Let’s get back to training.”

…

They get better in the days that pass.

Sasuke is still as sullen, Sakura still moons over him at times, Naruto is still very much himself, and Katana still sometimes pretends not to know them. But they’re growing together, slowly, under Kakashi’s guidance—they grow stronger, faster, far less likely to break.

Despite the superstitions, no bad things happen.

Katana breathes in, breathes out, and the ache in her chest vanishes.

…

And then Wave happens.


	9. blood in the breeze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Katana stands and walks with her teammates, all of them are broken in some way. Sasuke limps with every step; Naruto clutches the wound at his side, quiet as he walks and Sakura is forcing back her tears, barely breathing. Kakashi’s neck lolls to the side, his temple brushing against Katana’s face briefly, and his skin burns.
> 
> They should’ve turned back.
> 
> Now they have no other choice but to walk on.

 

They should’ve turned back.

Should’ve ran away, ran back to the village, should’ve marched down to the missions table and demand an explanation for the faulty mission details that’s been given to them. They should’ve backed down immediately. But they hadn’t, and now there’s drying blood in Katana’s hands, and it isn’t hers—not completely. Her forehead has a gaping cut, and it oozes slow crimson, sliding down the side of her face with an overpowering scent that hits every time she takes a breath, but the blood in her hands in not hers.

The blood is Naruto’s—from when Katana had caught him and his side had been cut, orange jumpsuit sliced open from the barest contact with Zabuza’s sword.

The blood is Sakura’s—they’d taken down Zabuza’s water clone together as they protected Tazuna, but it came with the price of Sakura getting nicked in the face, splitting her chin and her lip open and spraying red everywhere.

The blood is Zabuza’s as well—Katana had gotten a lucky swipe in, had cut him in the chest and had nearly sliced his left arm, but all she’d gotten from it was a horrible, furious laugh before Zabuza kicked her in the jaw and almost had her bite her tongue off, sending her crashing against a tree.

They should’ve turned back.

They’d gotten cocky, defeating those two missing nins that had ambushed them on the road. Both of them had been vicious, Chuunin-level at the very least, but Sasuke had been quick to incapacitate them with a well-aimed shuriken, and Naruto had no hesitations in pressing the sharp edge of his kunai against the vulnerable patch of skin on the enemy’s neck. Katana and Sakura had done the same with the other. No one had frozen in fear despite their combined inexperience—Kakashi had taught them too well for that, had been laidback and confident as he stood and watched as his genin team took care of the fight, all without him needing to lift a finger.

They should’ve turned back when they had the chance.

And they did have a chance.

One look from Kakashi was all it took for the bridge builder Tazuna to spill every detail he’d kept to himself out of desperation, and one shared glance among the team was all it took for them to realize how dangerous this mission truly was. A C-rank mission is nothing—they’ve trained for it endlessly, Kakashi had drilled into their heads all the possible dangers they would encounter.

A B-rank is a different matter entirely.

But they’d been too arrogant, too caught up in their meaningless little victory and exchanged nothing but grim, foolhardy smiles as they pushed forward in their mission.

They should’ve turned back.

But they didn’t, and now the B-rank is an A-rank with Momochi Zabuza dead on the ground in a pool of his own blood from where the tracker shinobi had speared him on the neck with steel senbon. In front of her, Katana watches with a certain kind of numbness as the tracker hefts Zabuza on his shoulder with an ease that looks completely wrong—the tracker is just a boy but he carries their enemy as if Zabuza was weightless, as if Zabuza hadn’t cut through their laughably fragile defenses, hadn’t made them all bleed—and disappear into the fog. In front of her, Kakashi takes a faltering step and crumples down to the ground like a rag doll, and none of them are quick enough to catch him. The dull sound of him dropping echoes in Katana’s ears like white noise.

They should’ve turned back.

“Let’s go,” Sasuke tells all of them in a measured tone, ridiculously composed even after what had taken place. He takes up the leader role with nothing more than a grimace, and he hisses when he bends down in an attempt to pick up Kakashi. Sasuke’s maybe cracked a rib, possibly two, when Zabuza had kicked him and sent him flying through the air—Katana sees it in the way he straightens up, too careful, too slow. She sees it in the way he hesitates before frowning at all of them. “Snap out of it,” he spits, steel-voiced. Sakura and Naruto flinch. Tazuna stares at them uncertainly. “Our mission isn’t done.”

Naruto comes out of his stupor first. He rushes to Kakashi’s side and bends to carry half of his sensei’s dead weight gently. “Katana-chan!” He calls out, glancing at her.

Sakura returns to her senses next. The cut on the lower half of her face has almost stopped bleeding, but she still makes a face when her tongue darts out to swipe on her bottom lip out of reflex. Sakura turns to their client, gives her best attempt at a reassuring smile despite the blankness of her eyes. “Tazuna-san, please lead the way to your house.” When the old man nods and walks to the front, she turns worriedly to Katana.

“Katana-chan,” Sakura says, stepping towards her. She reaches out with a hand, but doesn’t dare touch. “Katana-chan, we need you.”

Katana blinks.

She turns to her teammate, witnesses first-hand as the worry in Sakura’s green eyes slowly morphs into fear. Katana wonders what Sakura sees in her that makes her scared. “Okay,” Katana says. Her voice sounds like it isn’t coming from her—it sounds far away instead. Detached. She leaves Sakura behind to walk towards the other side of Kakashi, ignoring Naruto’s stare at her as she picks up her Tou-san’s arm and bears his weight on her shoulder.

They should’ve turned back, and now it’s too late—when Katana stands and walks with her teammates, all of them are broken in some way. Sasuke limps with every step; Naruto clutches the wound at his side, quiet as he walks, and Sakura is forcing back her tears, barely breathing. Kakashi’s neck lolls to the side, his temple brushing against Katana’s face briefly, and his skin burns.

 ** _He hurt them_** **,** the voice in Katana’s head says and it sounds far too tempting to be comfortable, **_he’s broken them, he’s broken all of you—don’t you want to gut him alive? Don’t you want to hear him scream as he spills open, don’t you want to paint the world red—_**

 _No_ , Katana thinks. She buries the voice, cuts it off before it says any more. If she listens, she’ll lose control, and then they’ll have another problem in their hands that none of them will be able to fix. _Zabuza is dead._

They should’ve turned back.

Now they have no other choice but to walk on.

…

She doesn’t leave his side until he wakes up.

Katana waits instead, keeping a silent vigil next to where Kakashi lies on a borrowed futon. Sakura joins her for a long while during the late afternoon, only leaving with a sad smile and a firm hand on Katana’s shoulder when it’s time to help Tsunami-san make dinner. Outside are the sounds of Naruto chopping up wood for the fire—he’s bickering with Sasuke once again, and arguing with someone who sounds like the little boy, Inari, but there is too much exhaustion in his voice for it to have its usual bite.

When Kakashi finally stirs, cracking his eye open, Katana makes sure that the first thing he sees is her glare.

Kakashi closes his eye shut with a groan. “Maa, Katana-chan. No wonder I was having nightmares, with you looking at me like that.”

“Good,” Katana snaps, merciless.

“Is that any way to talk to your beloved Tou-san?”

“It is, when he makes stupid decisions,” Katana says with a scowl, glare easing up just a little when Kakashi chuckles weakly at her. He’s still in pain—that much is obvious with the stiffness of his movements—but if he can laugh, at the very least Katana knows he’s not about to die at any given moment. The thought of him dying builds a painful lump in her throat, so she doesn’t think about it. “I can’t believe you told us to run away. You said teamwork was important. And I thought I made you promise me that you’re not going to leave me.”

“Sometimes teamwork means following the order of your jounin sensei.” Kakashi returns her glare with an unimpressed look. “And I thought I made you and Naruto promise me that you’re going to save yourselves if I couldn’t save you. Looks like we’re both terrible at keeping promises, Kat-chan.”

Katana grimaces. “Don’t call me that, Tou-san.”

It makes Kakashi smile despite the situation. “But, Kat-chan—“

“I’ll walk out of this room.”

“Rude. You’re really hurting your Tou-san’s feelings today, you know?”

The sound of approaching footsteps interrupts Katana before she can answer back, and both she and Kakashi crane their heads to see Naruto entering the doorway. Naruto’s expression lights up like a bulb at the sight of Kakashi conscious once again. “Sakura-chan, Sasuke-teme!” He shouts, and Katana winces at his volume. If he keeps it up, Tazuna-san might throw them out even when they’re supposed to be guarding him. “Kaka-sensei woke up!”

“Naruto,” Kakashi scolds, sighing when the boy runs excitedly and drops to sit beside Katana. “Keep your voice down.”

“You’re awake!” Naruto whisper-yells, heeding Kakashi’s words for once. He bounces in his seat and points an accusing finger at Kakashi, even though there are tears gathering in his eyes. When he speaks again, it’s with a forced kind of humor, fragile at the edges, and it makes Katana’s eyes burn, too. “Kaka-sensei! That was so lame! You collapsed right after fighting Zabuza.”

“Yes,” Kakashi admits, voice gentle. “I know.”

“You had Katana-chan worried. Sasuke-teme bossed us around without you. Sakura-chan almost cried!”

“I know.”

“Right after you promised you won’t let any of us die, too!”

“I know.”

“We had to save you ourselves. You’re such a liar, ‘ttebayo,” Naruto gives out a hollow laugh that breaks in the middle, turning halfway into a sob as his expression crumples and the tears finally escape. He swipes a furious hand across his face. Katana stares at him helplessly, so desperate to help yet so lost as to how. “I thought you were gonna die.”

“Naruto,” Kakashi finally says, reaching out a hand. “Come here.”

He pulls Naruto carefully to him, and Naruto curls up to his side with a sad, watery hiccup.

It’s how Sakura and Sasuke find them minutes later, both of them rushing to enter the room at the sight of Kakashi awake. It doesn’t take Sakura another second to burst out crying out of sheer relief. She claps a hand over her mouth to choke down her tears and stumbles towards the futon on unsteady legs, collapsing against Kakashi’s other side with a muffled sob of “Sensei!”

Sasuke freezes by the doorway, his own eyes glassy as he sucks in a harsh breath and stares, as if still in disbelief.

“Okay, we’re okay,” Kakashi murmurs to the two genin crying in his arms. He looks at Sasuke, and beckons him over with a tilt of his head. Sasuke walks to them wordlessly, shoulders tight with tension, spine pulled back like he’s going to snap even as he sits next to Katana. There’s something dark and unreadable in his eyes as he looks at them, and his hands grip fistfuls of his dirt-stained shorts.

“I heard you took charge of them,” Kakashi tells him, hushed. “Good job.”

Sasuke takes in another sharp breath. “Yeah,” he says roughly, but his shoulders sag when the word escapes him, and Sasuke looks down to the floor as his body curls inwards. Katana forces herself to look away—if she looks too closely, she might catch the trembling of Sasuke’s hands on his lap, or the way moisture prickles at the corner of his eyes, and it’s the last thing she wants to see. “We had a mission to do.”

“You did.” Kakashi says. His gaze is soft as he looks at them. “And you all did your best. I’m proud of you.”

Sasuke nods jerkily, saying nothing more as he bows his head to hide his face.

And in the silence that passes, Katana watches them with her heart in her throat. This is what she almost lost today—a father, a brother, and teammates who have grown to be like family. All it would have taken was a single misstep, a risk miscalculated, an attack gone wrong, and their lives would have ended in the battlefield, with no way to bring them back.

 _This is what it means to be shinobi_ , they’ve told her back in the Academy, _to kill or be killed. To hurt or be hurt. It’s their life over yours._

It had always been about losing yourself.

They never said anything about losing everyone else.

…

Sasuke catches her awake at midnight, sitting alone on the dusty ground outside with nothing more than her sword and the cleaning rag Tsunami-san had lent her for company. There is no one else in the silence except for her and the voice inside her head, murmuring promises Katana does not want to hear and keeps drowning out with a broken hum of an old lullaby.

She doesn’t hear his footsteps over the noise inside her head—Katana sees Sasuke’s feet instead, legs spotted with bruises from fighting, and when she looks up, she finds him frowning down at her. Her hands stop from where they were wiping clean the blood stains off the blade. “Sasuke.”

“Katana,” Sasuke says, and whatever he’s supposed to say next falls into the empty air between them as he cuts himself off. There’s an odd hesitance in the set of his jaw and his dark eyes are troubled. It’s an unsettling thing to see, Sasuke hesitating. Katana is more than aware of his capability to be blunt no matter the circumstance and it makes no sense that he’s not doing it now. “Sensei wants me to relay a message.”

Katana frowns. “What is it?”

Sasuke looks down. “Zabuza might still be alive,” he says, and Katana feels the air come out of her lungs, hears the voice grow louder, deafening in its violent glee— ** _alive_** , it hisses, **_will you let him live, after what he’s done, he must pay with blood, must drown in it, let him choke_** _—_ and the sword slips from her grip.

It hits the ground with a metallic clank, explosive in the silence of the night, and breaks Katana away from the voice as it dives back to the depths of her mind. Katana blinks in time to see Sasuke’s eyes narrow at her in judgment. She clears her throat and reaches for her weapon, fingers clumsy and fumbling as they grasp the hilt.

“Sorry.” Katana hears her voice but like before, it sounds disconnected. It’s as if her head is held underwater and everything feels slow, muffled. It’s a struggle to mask the trembling rage in her words. “How is he alive?”

“Sensei says tracker nins dispose of the target’s body quickly. They don’t normally transfer somewhere else to do it.” Sasuke shifts his weight on his feet, scowling. “And apparently, you can give someone a temporary death with some senbon and enough knowledge of pressure points.”

“The tracker,” Katana echoes hollowly. She remembers his deadly aim, and the strength with which he carried Zabuza’s dead weight like nothing, and grimaces. “He’s an accomplice, then?”

“Most likely.”

“Have you told Naruto and Sakura?”

Sasuke shakes his head. “Not yet. I’ll tell them in the morning. I thought I’d tell you first.”

“Why?”

“Because with Sensei down, we’re the first line of defense,” Sasuke says, meeting Katana’s gaze head-on. His dark eyes burn as he speaks, and suddenly, Katana understands.

Sasuke is angry, too.

“We can’t let what happened happen again.”

…

They partner up and take shifts guarding Tazuna-san—Sasuke and Naruto in the morning while the girls train, Katana and Sakura taking their turn in the afternoon as the boys hone their tree climbing in the forest next to the house. Kakashi recovers little by little, and by the fourth day, he’s able to walk on his own once more.

Tazuna-san spends his time working on the bridge and goes home with Katana and Sakura, the three of them bringing whatever little food they can buy from the quaint, impoverished marketplace of Wave village.

One night, Tazuna-san tells them the story. Of Inari and the father he’s found for himself, of the man whose courage turned him into a hero, and how the hero fell dead in the hands of Gato, having been no less human than the rest of them in the end. The village had lost their spirit after that, all but succumbing under Gato’s control so they can be spared from the same fate.

“Now, all that’s left of our hero’s glory days is that picture on the wall,” Tazuna-san says somberly. Katana glances at it—the picture is torn at the edge where the father should have been, and it’s left a haunting image behind. The sight of Inari smiling happily is a far cry from the sullen child that walks around the house. He seems like a ghost now. “And my grandson has stopped believing in heroes.”

“I’ll prove him wrong,” Naruto declares unprompted, and everyone turns to look at him. Despite the heavy atmosphere that’s taken over the room, it makes Katana bite back a smile. Trust Naruto to make a promise in the middle of the oddest moments. “I’ll prove to everyone that heroes do exist.”

Naruto only gets a dubious look from Tazuna-san, and a hair ruffle from Kakashi for his trouble.

They continue to watch over Tazuna-san on their shifts and continue to train on their down time. Kakashi gets to full recovery. Naruto claims to have met a pretty girl who turned out to be a boy, Sasuke sneers at him, and Sakura tries to intervene in the resulting fight. Katana stays at the side lines, sighing. The bridge nears completion with each passing day.

The second week goes by slowly, peacefully.

Like the calm before the storm.

Like a fog of silence that descends before the first scream rings out.

…

It happens on their watch.

It happens in a split second, in a slow blink, in between the spaces of their current breath and the next.

The mist arrives like a heavy blanket of cotton haze, curling like thick smoke, cold like death, but there is no time given for dying words. Instead, the workers drop one by one, bleeding from slit necks and corpses by the time they hit the pavement. Katana draws her sword, other hand whipping up to cover Sakura’s mouth, quivering open and ready to shriek.

 _Don’t scream,_ Katana thinks desperately as she shifts, moving back to guard Tazuna-san with her body. There are shameful tremors in her fingertips that she knows Sakura can feel against her face and Katana holds her breath as Sakura works through her terror. Both of them know the same thing—Zabuza is back, and he’s made sitting ducks out of all of them. _If you scream, we’re going to die._

It happens without warning.

One second they are alone, coiled tight like spring as they wait for the attack to come from somewhere in the fog, and in the next, Zabuza and the tracker nin are standing before them, their clothes pristine and without a single drop of blood.

Tazuna-san is smart enough. He holds his breath, doesn’t dare move a muscle from where he stands, doesn’t dare look at Zabuza. Sakura does the same, breath shallow from where she has a flimsy grip on a kunai, defensively raised in front of her. Katana stands her ground, heartbeat roaring in her ears, and ignores the voice hissing in the back of her mind. She forces herself to meet his eyes.

It makes Zabuza laugh, an ugly, chilling sound that disturbs the fog.

“Don’t blink, _gaki,_ ” he taunts her, grinning manically underneath the bandages on his face. Katana tenses. “If you blink, I’ll slice their heads clean off their necks.” His words are followed by a wave of killing intent, strong enough to suffocate and even more bitingly cold than the chill of the mist—it prickles her skin like frostbite eating them alive, digs inside of her like needles under a fingernail. Katana takes in a stutter of a breath. Beside her, Sakura chokes down another building scream.

“Zabuza-san,” the tracker nin says softly. The softness of his voice doesn’t suit the way he twirls a senbon in his hand, ready to strike. “Please don’t be cruel.”

“I’m always cruel, Haku.”

Katana blinks, and Zabuza disappears.

“Get down!” Katana shouts as she whirls around, shoving Tazuna-san and Sakura flat on the ground and swinging her sword up. Her blade collides with Zabuza’s broadsword, weapons clashing in the space where Tazuna-san’s head would have been. Katana bears the forceful weight with a grit of her teeth, glaring up at Zabuza. She slides her sword off of his with a metallic shriek, ducking Zabuza’s next strike and slashing for his neck.

Zabuza jumps back with a low curse. A piece of bandage falls away, sliced off from where it was wrapped around his throat and baring a sliver of his skin. Katana’s grey eyes zero in on it automatically like a target.

 ** _Make him bleed_** , the voice says, **_make him choke_** —

“Oh,” Zabuza comments with a sneer. He presses a hand over the exposed skin on his neck and sends Katana a chilling stare. “I didn’t see it in our fight before, but you’re something different, aren’t you, brat?”

“Shut up,” Katana hisses, at Zabuza and the voice both.

“Unlike them, you’re not afraid of me,” Zabuza continues, stepping forward.

Katana ignores him. Gripping her sword, she stands over Tazuna-san and Sakura, whose green eyes are wide with overwhelmed fear, muscles locked in trembling horror. “Sakura,” Katana calls in hopes that it’ll snap Sakura out of it. Her voice falls on deaf ears. “Sakura!”

Zabuza takes another step closer, and the mist closes in around them. “You’re afraid of what I’ll do _to them._ ”

“Sakura!” Katana begs, clenching her teeth as the girl remains unresponsive. She widens her stance to cover both of them as much as she could, all too aware of the presence of the tracker—Haku—behind her. If he strikes with his senbon, Katana has no way to defend herself. If she deflects, she will have no choice but to turn her back on Zabuza, and then they’ll all be dead.

Zabuza raises his sword overhead to strike, and stares into Katana’s wide eyes. “Too bad you can’t protect them by yourself!”

Haku throws the senbon, and Zabuza brings his weapon down.

And Katana makes her choice.

She swings her sword up, chakra flaring in outrage, and snarls, “I will if I have to!”

The resulting clash is an explosive noise, deafening—but Katana holds firm, arms unyielding despite the force behind Zabuza’s blow, and she glares up into his disbelieving gaze, waiting for the senbon to pierce through flesh—

—and it never does.

Katana hears a metallic drop instead, and a voice behind her that makes her eyes damn near water in relief.

“Sorry we’re late.”

From the corner of her eyes, she sees Sasuke running towards the direction of Haku and Naruto sprinting to her side to pull up both Tazuna-san and Sakura away from the battle. Someone taller, stronger, looms over her and throws a kunai over her shoulder, forcing Zabuza to leap away in a safe distance. Without his full weight bearing down against Katana, she staggers backwards, weak-kneed all of a sudden.

“Kakashi,” Zabuza growls, annoyed.

Kakashi falls in place beside her, drops a hand over Katana’s still raised sword and gently lowers it back down. “Katana,” he says with deceptive calmness, disregarding the trembling of the blade underneath his touch. When Katana looks up, it’s to the sight of Kakashi’s mismatched eyes burning with fury as he glares at Zabuza. “Let me take care of this.”

…

They pick up the fight in the middle of the thickest fog, and then they leave Katana behind to guard Tazuna. Kakashi has long since disappeared into the mist, showing up in front of Katana only to block a hit that Zabuza meant for her before vanishing behind the fog once again with the missing nin chasing after him. Even Sakura has left her side, jumping into the fray as soon as she snaps out of the trance she’s in and both of them realize that Naruto and Sasuke are no match against Haku.

Katana is blind, unable to see anything beyond the barest silhouettes in the white smoke, but she hears the clashes of kunai against metal clearly, catches the acrid stench of fresh blood in the air. She knows they’re in danger, and she can’t do anything about it. _Too bad you can’t protect them by yourself_ , Zabuza has said. Now Katana can’t protect any of them at all, rendered useless at Tazuna-san’s side.

It makes her want to scream—there’s a growing, churning black pit in her stomach that she keeps trying to control, and gold like venom in her heart that she keeps ignoring in between each uneven breath through the clench of her teeth. She can’t protect them if she’s far away, and if she can’t protect them, then what good is she?

Her breath hitches when the fog starts to lift.

“Tazuna-san.” It takes all of her willpower to speak, all of her self-control to keep herself from charging into the battlefield that slowly being revealed before her eyes. “If I leave you—“

“I’ll stay here, Katana-chan,” the old man says with an understanding nod. “Don’t you worry about me.”

Katana swallows back the rest of her apology.

In the distance, there’s the low, guttural growls of a pack that Katana knows from her childhood, and the ringing hum of a thousand birds chirping. The mist fades, and Katana sees it—

—the blood stains on cracked pavement, Zabuza weakened, pinned and held hostage in between sharp teeth—

—the pull of Kakashi’s arm, the crackle of chakra in his hand, the last of his strength gathered in his bleeding palm, and she watches him run toward Zabuza with a single-minded focus—

—someone shouts—Naruto, yelling for someone to _stop, don’t go there, HAKU_ —

—and Kakashi’s fist pierces through skin, through flesh and bone, punching a gaping hole through Haku’s chest. Kakashi stares through the blood that’s taken over his vision, frozen in horror as Haku looks back at him with dead eyes, coughing out Zabuza’s name with his last breath. The ninken holding down Zabuza disappear.

 _He jumped in between them._ The air inside Katana’s lungs goes out at once. _The boy jumped to save Zabuza._ She takes one look at Zabuza’s expression and the way it darkens, eyes narrowing with promises of violent pain, and then Katana is running across the bridge, feet hitting cement in a sprint of desperation. She knows that look all too well, that brewing darkness inside, that rage that bursts into the surface to be heard. Zabuza lifts his sword, and he’s going to kill him, he’s going to kill Kakashi, _Tou-san is going to die—_

**_Make him bleed._ **

Katana leaps the remaining distance, swinging her sword down as she goes, and blood sprays everywhere.

Zabuza’s sword drops to the ground. He looks down on the blade that cuts deeply through both of his arms, and then he looks to the side, to where Katana’s hands are on the hilt, staring back at him wildly with eyes that flicker black and gold.

“You,” Zabuza rumbles, blinking at her like he couldn’t understand. The fight seems to go out of his body, replaced by frustration. “Like Haku, you—“

Katana yanks her sword out roughly and more blood flows out of the wounds like crimson rivers as Zabuza’s arms fall limp, useless at his sides. There’s a cruel kind of glee that’s settling in her chest at the sight of Zabuza bleeding, and it begs for more.

She kicks the broadsword away, sending it sliding far from anyone’s reach, and moves to stand between him and Kakashi. Her sword is ready by her side, should Zabuza make the slightest move. She knows the speed in which he attacks, knows just how much he was able to break them the last time they’d fought.

Something horrible crosses Zabuza’s features.

“Move,” he spits, glaring at the man behind Katana. “Or I’ll make you move.”

Katana stays, blocking the way as Kakashi jumps in retreat, bringing Haku’s body with him. “If you go for him,” Katana hisses, and her voice sounds odd, like someone else is speaking from her mouth. “I will gut you.”

Zabuza swings his leg in a kick—Katana’s braced for it but it’s still too fast, he should topple over with that speed and both his arms dangling from injury—and it connects with a sickening crack against the sword Katana raises just in time. The blade slices clean through the flesh of his shin, hitting bone, and it bleeds a waterfall down the length of Katana’s sword.

Her hands are crimson-slick when she pulls it off.

Zabuza stumbles back unsteadily, and Katana lunges forward with bared teeth.

**_Make him pay._ **

She ducks the next roundhouse kick, swinging her sword in a wide arc. It catches Zabuza on the chest, leaves a long line of bubbling red between the ripped fabric of his clothes, and Katana slashes for his head next. He twists in the last second, the blade burying itself on the meat of his right arm instead but it’s not enough, the wrath crawling up her neck burns for more, it’s not enough, not if he can still fight—

He knees her in the stomach.

It leaves a gasping agony in its wake, crushing her from the inside, and an animalistic noise rips out of her throat.

Katana plunges her sword straight down and stabs him in the thigh.

Zabuza screams.

It’s a delightfully mangled sound that echoes throughout the battlefield, echoes inside her ears, and Katana’s blood roars within her veins as she watches Zabuza’s descent to the ground, his back hitting the pavement as the agony catches up to him, fingers twitching in a pathetic display.

Katana moves to stand over him, a looming figure that casts a shadow over this wondrous, crumpled form.

He seemed so big before.

Untouchable.

So different from the wounded thing he is now, bleeding out in front of her with wet, rasping breaths—Katana imagines that if she cuts him open, cuts him screaming, Zabuza would look even smaller. She sees it, then—that sliver of exposed skin on the column of his throat, left smooth and undamaged.

Zabuza escaped her earlier.

Now he has nowhere left to go.

Her tongue darts out to swipe over her lip, tasting rust, and the darkness inside her chest trills. Distantly, she can hear someone calling—a familiar voice, terror-gripped as it speaks her name, but it’s muffled behind this wretched screaming in her head that promises silence in exchange of more, so Katana stands over Zabuza with her sword poised above his neck.

She meets his gaze, and her eyes are black.

**_Let him choke._ **

Katana brings the sword down—

—and a gloved hand catches her blood-stained wrists, stopping the blade in its motion.

“Katana.”

There’s a solid chest behind her. Kakashi is there again, pulling her away from the fight like he did earlier, this time with an arm around her waist to hold her steady, to hold her _back_ , and Katana is burning with rage as she struggles. “Katana, that’s enough.” Kakashi clutches her tighter even as she elbows him, pins her in place and yanks her wrists back, away from Zabuza’s neck, and it’s not enough, _she isn’t done yet if he can still breathe, it’s not enough—_ “I said that’s enough!”

“It’s not _,_ ” Katana snarls. The anger runs like poison, bitter in her mouth, and she shudders with it. Her whole body feels like it’s been lit aflame, like it’s been cursed to burn into ashes. How can Kakashi stand to hold her like this? “He _hurt you._ ”

“I hurt him, too.” Kakashi moves both of them a step back and she goes unwillingly, gritting her teeth. “It’s time to stop.”

With each step they take away from Zabuza, the ringing in her ears fades—it leaves her deaf in the silence that follows, each ragged inhale forcing itself into her throat and pushes her lungs into working again. The fire in her veins bleeds out slowly. The chill in the air is quick to replace it, latching onto Katana’s stiff, blood-crusted fingers around the hilt of her sword.

She takes a breath and pain makes itself known once more. There is an ache to her body now, her abdomen stinging with the pain of a fresh bruise. The blood drying on her skin itches. Katana blinks, and her eyes return to grey. She makes the mistake of looking down at Zabuza.

Zabuza stares at her, eyelids fluttering, half-dead. “Don’t blink, _gaki_ ,” he rasps, coughing, and blood spills out of his mouth. “You…did this. Looks like there’s…a demon in you, too.”

The grip on her sword trembles, and then slackens as she lowers it, but Katana doesn’t look away. It’s only Kakashi who holds her steady when she inevitably falls back on brittle bones and agony-soaked muscles, holds her steady through the first wave of sick horror that blooms in her chest and spreads throughout her body.

“Katana-chan.”

Breathing heavily, she cranes her head towards the source of the voice, and there’s Sakura looking at her in wide-eyed terror that Katana feels to her very core. Naruto stands next to her, his blue gaze just as bright with alarm. Sasuke lies on the ground by their feet, unconscious.

And then a new voice speaks out from a distance, smug and utterly repulsive. “Well, well! They really did a number on you, didn’t they, Zabuza?”

All of them tense up. Katana whirls to look in front of her, and finds that there’s no time for regret.

At the unfinished end of the bridge stands a short man in business clothes, and behind him are a crowd of 50 or so men, a mix of cheaply-paid road bandits and chuunin-level missing nins. _Gato,_ her mind supplies, and Katana’s stomach sinks at the sight.

“Looks like I won’t have to pay you after all, Demon of the Mist!” Gato cackles. He turns to the group behind him with the air of a man who lives without conscience. “Change of plans! I want these rats dead. Whoever brings me Momochi Zabuza’s head and the corpse of that stupid brat first gets the highest pay!”

There’s a round of violent cheers, weapons rising.

Gato turns back at their team and smiles a revolting grin. “And whoever brings me that pretty pink girl alive gets the second highest!”

The cheers grow vicious.

“Run,” Katana breathes out fearfully, just as Kakashi lets her go and turns around to bark at the team. “Take Tazuna and Sasuke and run!”

Sakura does as she told, meeting Tazuna-san in the middle as he runs to her. The bridge builder scoops up their unconscious teammate and makes a hasty escape, Sakura right by his heels. Naruto stands frozen in place for a split second, and then runs the opposite direction, skidding to a stop next to Katana.

“Kakashi,” Zabuza says, and Katana turns to look down at him in disbelief. “Help me stand.”

Momochi Zabuza is a bleeding mess of stab wounds and cuts but he stands on his own as soon as Kakashi helps him up. Katana watches him with wide eyes. He looks like a living corpse, like a creature that’s clawed its way out from beneath the grave only to drag someone down with him, and it’s the most terrifying thing Katana has seen in her life. “Do me one last favor, Kakashi,” he rumbles, eyes dead set on the crowd awaiting him and on the man in the middle of it all. “When I die, bury me beside Haku.”

“I will,” Kakashi swears and tosses him a kunai.

Zabuza catches it in his mouth. “ _Gaki_ ,” he growls through the metal caught in his teeth. Katana holds her breath. “You fight with me.”

“I won’t let you hog the spotlight, Katana-chan,” Naruto says next to her, hands quickly running through a pattern of seals. Multiple shadow clones appear behind him, settling next to the shadow clones that Kakashi has already made.

When Katana glances back at him, Kakashi gives a grim nod. “I don’t think they’ll stop,” he says carefully, regret clear in his voice, “unless they’re dead.”

The group charges towards them.

Zabuza runs like a man possessed and barrels into the crowd, mowing down bodies and spilling blood as he goes. The blood-curdling scream of a man that sounds suspiciously like Gato gets caught in the middle of the enemies’ battle cries.

When the first bandit comes within reach, Katana readies her sword and heeds Kakashi’s words.

She aims for their throats.                                     

…

Between Zabuza’s monstrous killing and the cowards that ran in fright as soon as they witnessed the first signs of an oncoming bloodbath, the fight is over before they know it and soon, they’re standing in the middle of a quiet bridge, the skies above them calm once more and without a single trace of a fog.  

Katana stares down at the crimson that has seeped through the pores of the cement in silence. By her sides, her hands are stiff with dried blood, and small flecks of it chip off every time she moves them.

 _Don’t you want to paint the world red_ , the voice had asked her, and she’d listened to it like a fool.

She wonders whether there’s any truth to Zabuza’s words. Wonders about this cursed seal she has that no one knows what to do about, much less understand how it works. Perhaps it is as he had said, a demon instead of a cursed seal.

 _Or maybe it’s neither_ , Katana thinks hollowly, with a growing lump of emotion in her throat, _and I’m just a monster all along._

“Katana.”

She looks up at Kakashi’s call.

They’re gathered around the two bodies now, Zabuza having taken his last breath as soon as he reached to hold Haku’s hand. Katana sees Sakura and Naruto, and the sitting form of Sasuke propped up against the railings of the bridge, Tazuna-san watching over him. There’s blood in her teammates’ clothes and skin as well, but somehow it feels different—like the blood in Katana’s hands is somehow darker, much more unforgivable. It feels like no matter what, they can never be as tainted as she is.

Katana walks to where they are to join them in a short moment of silence before the burial, but she doesn’t dare stand next to them, choosing to stay a safe distance away instead.

After having them witness what she truly is, surely they can’t want her now by their side.

Surely she’s worthy of them anymore.

…

Dinner is a quiet affair that feels too much like a funeral instead.

No one speaks as they pass food around the table, and only the sound of chopsticks against bowls can be heard. Tsunami-san and Tazuna-san understand, but Inari is all too young, and his mouth is pressed tight with worry as he watches all of them.

Sasuke moves with slow, stiff movements, inhaling sharply in pain every so often, and Naruto is pensive, subdued almost, frowning down at his meal that he picks apart distractedly—his eyes are still red-rimmed from all the crying he did over Haku’s grave, his gaze still blank with shock.

Kakashi remains wordless in his exhaustion. His gloves are off for once, the fabric soaked through with blood when he had carried Zabuza and Haku’s corpses and brought them gently down into the ground, and his pale hands rest unmoving on the table. Katana is the same, barely touching her food. Her hands feel dirty, as if perpetually tainted with blood no matter how many times she’s washed them, and it feels like she’ll mark anything she touches.

When the silence is disrupted, Katana is surprised to see that it’s Sakura who breaks it—the girl stands abruptly, jostling the whole table with her movement, and when she speaks, it comes out as a hoarse croak, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

Her hand grabs Katana’s, pulling her up from her seat forcefully, and then both of them are running through the hallway of the house, into the cramped space of the bathroom. Sakura slams the door shut just before she falls to the floor in front of the toilet, clutches the bowl, and vomits her guts out violently.

Katana flinches, wide-eyed and frozen in place with her back against the door.

The noise of heaving bounces off the walls as Sakura empties the non-existent contents of her stomach. It goes on for what seems like an eternity, this pathetic, painful sound caught in between harsh gasps for air and bitten off sobs, and finally Katana moves, heart heavy in her chest as she pulls pink hair back and out of Sakura’s clammy, sweat-drenched face, and waits.

The other girl dry heaves for long, agonizing moments but Katana holds on to Sakura gently, firmly, and when it comes to an end, she brushes away tears and sweat from Sakura’s pale cheek with a careful hand. Trembling, Sakura reaches for the flush—the sound of it fills the suddenly quiet room.

“Don’t tell them,” Sakura whispers hoarsely. The tears in her eyes have long since dried out. “Don’t tell them about this.”

Katana thinks they know already—the house is small, the walls thin and barely standing, and Sakura’s exit, with her dragging Katana behind, had been no less than obvious. But Katana doesn’t say any of it, nodding instead. “I won’t.”

She guides Sakura into standing up and rinsing out her mouth before making to open the door. Katana isn’t surprised when Sakura tries to pull away, shaking her head.

“I don’t want to go back,” Sakura says.

It makes sense—their teammates are probably the last people Sakura wants to see right now, given her puffy eyes and pallor, and the way she shudders like she’ll crumble away with a touch. Knowing them, Sasuke will probably scowl—out of concern, but his expressions are always too easy to misunderstand—and Naruto will probably raise a fuss which will turn everyone’s attention on her. It’s the last thing Sakura needs at the moment.

“Let’s go outside,” Katana suggests instead. “To get some air.”

…

“I saw you kill them.”

It’s the first thing that Sakura says after they sit down on the deck above the water. Katana doesn’t know how to properly react to it, doesn’t know whether it’s an apology or a confession that Sakura wants from her. So she settles for nodding instead, watching Sakura as she stares into the water below.

“I don’t know if you noticed me, but as soon as Tazuna-san and Sasuke-kun were safe, I came back to join the fight,” Sakura continues. She hugs her knees close to her body, eyes flickering to Katana. “And I saw how you killed them. I didn’t know death could be that fast in motion.”

Katana nods again, breathing painfully around all the words that want to come out of her throat at once. _I know_ , she wants to say, _I’m sorry. You should’ve looked away. You shouldn’t have come back. You weren’t meant to see what I am._

Instead, what comes out of her mouth is a small, “Do you hate me now?”

“No!” Sakura says, eyebrows drawn in upset, and Katana can feel her body slumping down in relief. “Why would I—it doesn’t make sense to hate you. You saved us. Why would I hate you?”

Katana shrugs, wordless.

“I don’t hate you,” Sakura repeats, and shakes her head. “I just—I thought I could do it, too,” she admits, voice dropping into a whisper. There are tears building up in her eyes again. “I tried to. I was ready, I told myself I was, and when this bandit came at me, I panicked and I—” Sakura cuts herself off, swallowing visibly. Her mouth trembles as she speaks. “There was so much blood. I didn’t even—the cut hadn’t even been that deep, but suddenly there was blood pouring out and I _couldn’t_ —“

“I know,” Katana says now, reaching for one of Sakura’s hands. It’s cold in her grip, soft and pale unlike her calloused, blood-stained ones, and she tries to warm it up as best as she can. “I’m sorry.”

Sakura clears her throat to rid of the cracks in her voice. “He didn’t die, I don’t think.” She takes a shaky breath, lets it out in one sigh. “Just got really scared and ran away.”

“I think sensei would say that that’s good enough.”

 Sakura purses her lips. “What does it feel,” she asks softly, “when you killed them?”

_Nothing._

_It feels like nothing, and then like everything all at once as soon as it’s done._

Katana takes a deep breath and looks down at their hands. Sakura does the same. “Sometimes the blood gets on your hands,” she says in lieu of an explanation and meets Sakura’s green eyes. “And sometimes, it feels like it won’t ever go away.”

“Oh,” Sakura says. She nods, tight-lipped, and gives Katana’s hand a firm squeeze. “Thank you,” she whispers, “for killing, so we won’t have to.”

The tight knot inside Katana’s chest undoes itself slowly. “You’re welcome.”

“Okay.” Sakura tries for a smile. It ends up small and a little sad. “Now turn around.”

Katana blinks. “What?”

“Turn around,” Sakura urges her, moving Katana bodily until she’s sitting with her back to Sakura. “I’m going to braid your hair.”

“Why?”

Sakura reaches for the top of her head, carefully combing her fingers through what Katana knows is a mess that she doesn’t usually pay attention to. But Sakura is patient, undoing each tangle with light fingers. “Because back when Ino and I were still friends, she would braid my hair and it would make me feel better. It’s also very pretty at the end.”

“Oh.”

Katana nods carefully. She thinks she’d like it too, if her hands can do something this gentle, with something beautiful at the end of it. Maybe then, it would feel like the blood has finally been washed away from her fingertips. “Would you,” she begins, hesitant, “would you teach me how to braid?”

She hears the first genuine smile in Sakura’s voice.

“Of course.”

…

They return to Konoha after a week, parting ways with Sakura and Sasuke at the gate, and the walk back home seems endless, each exhausted second feeling even longer than their entire journey to Wave and back. The moment they reach the Hatake compound, Naruto all but crawls to his room and into a coma in his futon. Katana watches from the open doorway as Kakashi tucks the blonde boy in properly with nothing more than a sigh, smoothing out his wild hair before standing up.

She walks with him to the kitchen where Kakashi makes two cups of tea, and then they sit across each other in silence.

Kakashi tugs his mask down. He takes a slow sip, and then peers at Katana’s face. “Something wrong?”

Katana meets his eyes and thinks about the blood that lingers stubbornly underneath her nails. About Zabuza’s almost murder in her hands, beneath her blade, and Sakura asking her what it feels like to kill. She thinks of the voice that slumbers within her, waiting for the perfect moment to rise once more from the depths of her mind.

_Don’t you want to paint the world red?_

Kakashi has said it was a cursed seal. Was it, really?

“Katana?”

Katana blinks, and smiles a careful smile. She hopes it’s convincing enough.

“Nothing,” she tells him. “There’s nothing wrong.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I basically was screaming the whole time I wrote this out of nerves--I can't believe I finished in three whole days. 
> 
> I hope you guys like this chapter! I'm both nervous and excited to hear what you think of it. ^_^


	10. Familiar strangers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Did you see him?” Katana asks.
> 
> Naruto frowns in confusion, scratching his head. “See who?”
> 
> “The boy.” Katana blinks again, and the memory of red seems to paint itself on the back of her eyes. “With the red hair.”

Much like the previous days since their return to Konoha, Katana’s morning begins like this:

Naruto wakes her up at the crack of dawn with the first sunlight trailing after him and spilling into the bedroom, and leaves just as fast as he came in. Katana sits up, slow and languid. The embrace of sleep is still heavy in her bones, tempting to pull her eyes closed once again, but she shakes it away and moves to fix her futon. Naruto will be upset, if she falls back asleep—she discovered that during the second day he did this.

They do the bare minimum preparation and soon, they’re both ready to go. Naruto pulls her back just before they reach the front door.

“We forgot to leave a note,” he blurts out and races back to the kitchen. Katana follows him much more calmly, entering the doorway and stopping at the sight in front of her.

There are things a person does after a particularly gruelling mission, Kakashi had explained to her once as a child, as they sat on the floor with all eight ninken cuddling up to them. Certain habits and personal quirks that seem to come out of nowhere, but it helps them move on from things, helps them accept certain realities.

Coping mechanisms, Kakashi had said.

Katana looks at Naruto now, stares at the way he writes out a note for Kakashi with an unusually amount of care he normally doesn’t have the patience to give, and wonders whether these are coping mechanisms, too—the intensity with which he drives to improve himself (and Katana by extension, as he drags her along), to become better, stronger, and this new thoughtfulness in the things he does, as if a budding maturity was instilled in him after their mission in Wave village.

(A lot of change has been happening since Wave village, if Katana is going to be honest. Sakura has become less likely to fawn over Sasuke and more likely to focus on the genjutsu training that Kakashi has given her; Sasuke has become even more unpredictable, jumping from wildly from being open to suddenly standoffish; and Naruto has become…whatever this was supposed to be, and Katana isn’t sure yet how she feels about these developments.

She has an inkling that the change isn’t over yet.)

“Done,” Naruto declares with a grin, pinning the note to their fridge with a magnet. He looks at Katana and his eyes shine with competitive energy. “Let’s go to the training grounds.”

…

They spar until mid-morning, until Naruto is sweating too much through his clothes that he has to take off his jacket and Katana is catching her breath, trying to keep up with Naruto’s insane stamina. Fighting with Naruto is an experience, Katana thinks. He’s scrappy, unpredictable, fighting with his fists and elbows and knees and whatever body parts he can use as a weapon, but his movements lack the proper control to be fully efficient—he swings his punches too wide, stumbles on his landings at times, falls on his face at given moments.

It makes Katana bite back a grin that escapes anyway as soon as Naruto shouts for her to stop laughing with his cheeks aflame in embarrassment. When Katana wins, their scores 3 to 2, Naruto demands one more rematch. It’s always one more, with Naruto.

They only stop when Pakkun appears before them with his usual wrinkled frown. “Kakashi’s worried sick for you brats already,” he growls, and then seems to realize his words. Pakkun sighs. “When did he turn into such a mother hen?”

“Blame Katana-chan,” Naruto says, grinning impishly when Katana glares at him. “I came to the scene much later.”

“We’ll go back now,” Katana reassures. This time it’s Naruto who looks at her petulantly, the chance of another round of sparring broken. “Thank you, Pakkun.”

Pakkun vanishes.

“No.” Katana is shaking her head, walking away before Naruto can even open his mouth. “We’re going.”

Naruto sprints to catch up to her side. “But I still need to beat you!” he protests.

“Naruto.” Her voice holds the same dryness as Kakashi’s—Katana has since discovered how useful it is for dealing with people who have ridiculous amounts of energy. “If we spar anymore, my arms are going to fall off. And then you won’t have a sparring partner tomorrow morning.” It’s true as well; Katana can feel the stiff exhaustion climbing up her limbs in a slow upwards trek, her limit finally catching up to her.

“Fine,” Naruto huffs. He gets a wicked smile in his face that alerts Katana of a bad idea hitting him. “Katana-chan—“

Katana grimaces. “No—“

“Race you home!”

Naruto runs for it before he’s even finished saying it, the cheater.

Katana groans. Runs after him nonetheless, sprinting on legs that burn and squeeze with every step. She slows to a jog mid-way, breathing heavy, but keeps his orange figure within her sight, just ahead of her. Despite the inconvenience, this whole thing and the _playfulness_ of it, makes a smile tug on the corners of Katana’s mouth—Naruto is still Naruto, even when he’s constantly changing.

 _I should get back at him_ , Katana thinks absentmindedly, her feet slowing even more until she’s walking in a brisk pace instead of jogging. In front of her, Naruto is getting farther and farther away, and she snorts at the thought of him waiting by the gate of the compound, probably fuming once he realizes that she isn’t chasing after him anymore. _Prank him for once._

One second, she’s distracted by this thought, legs walking on automatic even as she doesn’t pay attention—

—and in the next, she sees him and Katana’s mind goes blank.

The first thing that registers is red.

Red as the sky is blue, red against the pale porcelain of a face. _A boy_ , Katana realizes late, with this shock of crimson hair. It spills over his forehead like blood over white silk. A boy is walking toward her, coming from seemingly out of nowhere—he isn’t from here, that much Katana can tell. A foreigner. Her eyes fall to the hitai-ate tied to his body. _Shinobi,_ Katana thinks. _Sunagakure._

With each step they take, the distance between them gets closer, and the closer they get, the clearer Katana can see every other curious thing—the gourd on his back, startlingly big pressed against narrow shoulders that look even smaller wrapped in black clothes, draped with leather strips and white sashes. The flat line of his mouth, the fragile slope of his nose. The _kanji_ on his temple.

His eyes.

Ringed black, the color of a green sea.

His eyes.

Meeting hers for the briefest moment as they step close enough for Katana to reach out and touch him. ( _Why would she touch him?_ )

His eyes—

—a fleeting image.

They take a step forward in opposite directions and pass each other by. Katana walks on with her breath stuck in her lungs. She walks on, and then she stops, and then she turns to look back.

The boy is gone.

…

“Katana-chan!” Naruto points at her accusingly as soon as she opens the compound gate. He’s waiting by the front door, arms crossing over his chest and scowling. “You didn’t run!” Katana blinks, looks up to Naruto. There must be something on her face, because Naruto’s mock anger dissipates immediately in favor of looking concerned.

“Katana-chan?” Naruto tilts his head. “What’s wrong?”

“Did you see him?” Katana asks.

Naruto frowns in confusion, scratching his head. “See who?”

“The boy.” Katana blinks again, and the memory of red seems to paint itself on the back of her eyes. “With the red hair.”

…

“Oji-san, Katana-chan met a boy!”

Naruto declares this loudly as soon as he steps into the kitchen, and then there’s the sound of ridiculous coughing as Kakashi accidentally inhales his breakfast cereal. Rushing towards him with a pointed glare, Katana reaches over and pinches the underbelly of Naruto’s arm, hard. Her friend yelps away in protest.

“A boy?” Kakashi croaks out.

“It’s not a big deal,” Katana mutters, mortified at the unnecessary attention that Kakashi’s mismatched stare is giving her. She sits on the chair across him and pulls his cereal bowl close while he’s distracted. “I just saw him on the street. We passed by each other.”

“If it’s not a big deal, why’d you pinch me?” Naruto whines.

“What’s his name?” Kakashi asks, though it feels more like an interrogation. “Is he civilian? Shinobi? What does he look like?”

“Oh, oh!” Naruto slams an excited hand down on the dining table. “Did he look cooler than Sasuke-teme?”

Katana takes a large spoonful of cereal and chews mulishly. She takes another bite as she watches them ramble on and on, and then yet another bite.

“Is he your age?” Kakashi crosses his arms, eyes narrowing. “Older?”

“I bet he’s cooler than Sasuke-teme! Isn’t he? Katana-chan—”

“—but how much older? We should have a rule for that. You’re still only twelve—“

The bowl is halfway empty by the time both of them realize that she isn’t answering any of their questions, and both Naruto and Kakashi fall speechless. The sounds of quiet chewing takes over the kitchen, Katana dropping the spoon down into the bowl with a clatter once she’s done.

Kakashi looks down on the bowl, and then up at her. He blinks dumbly. “That was my cereal, Kat-chan.”

“Yes,” Katana says. She nods at him. “Thank you for the meal.”

Naruto snorts, doubling over in his laughter.

It makes Katana force back a grin as she watches Kakashi pluck the bowl from her clutches with a deliberate lack of reaction, clearly fighting off an exasperated smile that’s quickly being triggered by the sound of Naruto’s guffaws. Kakashi refills his bowl with cereal and milk once more, and takes a purposeful bite of it before using his spoon to point at Katana. “Just for that,” he says, “no boyfriends for you until you’re 30.”

Katana grimaces at the word _boyfriend_. “He was a stranger that I passed by on the street, Tou-san.”

“Ne, ne, Katana-chan,” Naruto pipes in as he settles down next to Kakashi with his own bowl of cereal. “Why’re you even curious about this guy? What’s so interesting about him?”

“He looked,” _striking. odd. red,_ “different,” Katana struggles, frowning in confusion at her own strange behavior. Naruto is right—it isn’t like her to get caught up with another person, much less a complete stranger. “He isn’t from around here. I think I saw a Suna hitai-ate.”

Kakashi lets out sound of understanding. “They’re visitors,” he explains to both of them when they turn to him, “for the Chuunin Exams in two weeks’ time. Shinobi from other villages will be here, too.”

Naruto gasps. “Chuunin Exams?!”

Katana inhales sharply as well, for a different reason. Her next swallow is painful. “Other villages?”

“No,” Kakashi says before she can continue down that line of thought. He sends her a small smile of reassurance, the look in his eyes concerned, and it’s almost shameful how easily she deflates in relief at the sight of it. “Not Kumo. But Suna, Oto, and Kusa are some of the invited villages.” Kakashi glances knowingly at Naruto. “Don’t pick fights with them.”

“I won’t, ‘ttebayo! What do you take me for?” Naruto grumps out. He tugs at Kakashi’s sleeve. “Will you let us join the Chuunin Exams?”

“It’s too soon for us,” Katana points out, sighing when Naruto scowls in protest at her. “Naruto—”

“Kaka-oji-san!” Naruto says once more. He pins a glare on Kakashi. “Will you?”

Kakashi hums back, drawing out the anticipation teasingly, and laughs when Naruto squirms on his seat and Katana rolls her eyes at him. “I’ll think about it,” Kakashi finally decides, much to Naruto’s disappointment. “Like Katana-chan said, it might be a little too soon for you guys. You’ve been genin for only a year.”

“That’s enough experience already!” Naruto wheedles, looking up at Kakashi with a pout so exaggerated even Katana can’t stop her huff of laughter as her adoptive father wrinkles his nose. “Don’t you want us to learn, senseiiii—“

Kakashi looks up to the ceiling for divine help. “Narutoooo.”

“Kaka-senseiiiiii.”

Katana watches them annoy each other, another laugh bubbling out of her throat. The thought of sea green eyes and strange boys and red crosses her mind, and vanishes.

…

All four of them perfect water walking during training the following week.

There’s no time to celebrate, however—no sooner than when they get out of the water, Kakashi explains the theory behind _Shunshin no jutsu_ with a little demonstration of his own, and then makes them do it. Sakura disappears and moves a meter forward in her first attempt. Sasuke moves half her distance, Katana almost just as far. Naruto overshoots the chakra in his body and leaves a smoking crater behind as he flies upwards instead of forward.

Kakashi makes them repeat it until their bodies are sore from gathering and expelling chakra, until their reserves are almost at the limit. And then at lunch, he quizzes them on textbook knowledge and survival tactics—first aid steps on poisoning and heavy bleeding, setting up traps, hiding scents and trails, coping with low chakra—and rewards whoever can answer correctly with a bento box.

When Naruto finally gets his lunch on the third try, he flings the lid of the bento away and groans dramatically around his first bite. “Why do you _hate us_ today?” he whines. From where he’s sitting on the ground and demolishing his own bento, Sasuke grunts a noise of agreement, glaring sullenly at Kakashi. Katana joins in with them with her own flat look, bone-tired.

Kakashi snorts. “If I hated you, I wouldn’t have bought you lunch.”

“But you are extra harsh on us today, sensei,” Sakura says. She’s finished eating already, having been the first one to get a question correctly. She gives out the two extra bento boxes she won to Sasuke and Naruto, both of whom don’t hesitate to start on it. “What’s with this training from Hell?”

“Think of it as a thorough, last-minute preparation.”

Sakura looks at him quizzically. “Preparation for what?”

Kakashi’s eye crinkles in a smile then, and the dots connect themselves in Katana’s brain. She looks at him with wide eyes, disbelieving. “You didn’t,” she breathes out, breaking into an incredulous grin.

“I did,” Kakashi confirms.

Sasuke glances at Katana with a frown. “Did what?”

“I nominated the four of you for the upcoming Chuunin Exams,” Kakashi says, garnering reactions out of all of them. Sakura sputters in surprise, Naruto whooping wildly even with his mouth full, and Sasuke straightens up, revealing nothing except for the way his dark eyes gleam with excitement. Kakashi takes out four application forms from the pocket of his flak vest, handing out one to each of them. “This will be next week, registration at room 301 at the Academy.”

The sound of Naruto cheering as he bounces around, along with Sasuke’s voice throwing comments at him, echoes in the background as Katana holds her form gently, careful not to get it wrinkled as she peers down on it—despite having it in her hands, it still feels unreal. She didn’t think for a moment that Kakashi would actually consider them ready to take on something this important.

“Sensei,” Sakura begins all of a sudden, and Katana looks up at the sound of her voice, her tone at odds with the excitement that everyone else is displaying. There’s an uncertain frown on Sakura’s face. “Are you sure we’re up for it? We barely have enough experience.”

Katana falls in quiet shock.

Even Naruto stops celebrating, taken aback by the amount of doubt in Sakura’s words.

“E-Eh?” he stammers, looking like a popped balloon. “But—But Sakura-chan—“

“You’re backing out?” Sasuke demands lowly, narrowing his eyes at their teammate. “I didn’t take you for a coward, Sakura.”

Sakura flinches.

“Hey!” Naruto shouts just as Katana snaps a sharp “ _Sasuke_ ” in her defense, but Sakura shoots them a look that has both of them closing their mouths shut. Sakura turns those eyes to Sasuke, and the boy tenses up. Katana knows he sees what she just saw—green eyes flashing in silent anger, looking downright venomous in its unspoken warning of _don’t test me_. It’s enough to make anyone shut up. Haruno Sakura has grown claws since the last time, Katana thinks, and she’s chosen to bare them now.

“It’s not cowardice to admit that we’re lacking,” Sakura says, making Sasuke grimace at her, but the boy doesn’t try to argue anymore. Sakura turns to Kakashi once again. “We’re only grasping some of the basics now, Sensei. Frankly, I don’t think we’ve learned enough.”

Silence follows Sakura’s statement. All four of them turn to Kakashi, waiting, and Katana blinks when he only gives a definite nod of agreement.

“You’re right,” Kakashi hums, patting Sakura gently on the head. “Very good observation.”

“Eh?” Sakura’s frown vanishes as flustered confusion takes over. “E-Eh? B-But what does that mean?”

“It means that you’re not ready, but I’m nominating you anyway,” Kakashi says. It only leaves them bewildered even further, but Kakashi continues on with his explanation despite the looks on their faces. “Experience is a better teacher than I am. I could teach you all the techniques I know, or make you memorize all the knowledge you’ll need but that won’t make any difference unless you’re able to put it into use.”

He lets out a sigh then, and joins them on sitting on the ground. Kakashi beckons for them to come closer waiting until they’re all huddled in a small circle before he speaks up again. “The Wave mission was not a good experience,” he begins quietly, and something somber takes over the air between them. It’s been weeks since, their wounds healed over and bruises faded by now but not one of them has forgotten the mental scars it left behind. “But it was an experience nonetheless, and I could tell you all learned something from it. I’m sure you’ve noticed,” Kakashi says, “that you’ve all changed since then.”

The four of them share a glance.

“Right now, after that mission, you’re more driven to improve yourselves than you have ever been driven before,” Kakashi tells them. “If I hold you back just so I could protect you from something dangerous, then I’d be doing all of you more harm than good.” He smiles at them ruefully, meeting each of their gazes in turn. “Have faith in yourselves. You’re evolving faster than you think.”

Naruto nods determinedly and glances at Sasuke. The other boy returns his look, and both of them find Katana’s grey eyes. All three turn to Sakura in the middle, waiting in silence.

“Okay,” Sakura whispers as she looks up, huffing out a slow smile. Her eyes return to their usual brightness. “Let’s do this.”

…

Because Naruto is still Naruto despite all the changes that have taken place, he picks a fight with two Suna genin on the way home.

(On hindsight, this makes Kakashi’s warning completely called for.)

Katana knows it isn’t Naruto’s fault—it’s a suspicious enough set up from the get-go, this larger teenage boy picking on the Hokage’s grandson, Konohamaru, and his two other tiny friends as his female teammate watches on, but Naruto had to go and rush into the scene in his panic, punching the genin in the face. Now Naruto is bound with what seems like thin ropes of chakra, unable to move a muscle before the Suna shinobi.

“I hate eager brats like this, _jan_ ,” the genin sneers, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth from where Naruto’s fist had gotten him. He’s got purple war paint on his face and the way he scowls makes the painted lines dig into an intimidating expression. He smirks at Naruto. “Should I teach you a lesson?”

“Kankuro,” the genin’s teammate warns with only the slightest bored frown in place. She seems unbothered by the scene before her. “You know you’ll get in trouble with him if you do something stupid.”

“He’s not here yet,” the boy—Kankuro—says. “Let me have my fun, Temari.”

At the end of the street, Katana watches all of it with a grimace, hand gripping her sword. Naruto had shouted at her not to interfere beforehand but as much as Katana doesn’t want to, Naruto’s words are proving to be a difficult thing to abide by, now that he’s getting his ass kicked in front of her and the kids he’d just saved. A quick glance at Konohamaru confirms for Katana that the kid is going to burst out sobbing any second now.

 _But if I swoop in and help,_ she considers inwardly, _I’ll never hear the end of it._

Kankuro peers over Naruto to look at her and his smirk grows. “You’re just gonna let me beat him up, then?”

Katana scowls. “He told me not to help.”

“Yeah, I did!” Naruto bites out in reminder, growling at Kankuro, but his struggles against the chakra restraints are a futile attempt. Katana scowls even deeper. “I got this!”

“Pathetic,” Kankuro scoffs, and then he’s pivoting on his heel for a kick swift enough to blur the air and Katana’s body moves on instinct.

A burst of chakra from her core for a _shunshin_ and suddenly, she’s there in between them, palm stinging with sharp pain from where she’s caught the genin’s foot before it can land on Naruto. Her other hand grips her drawn weapon, blade poised under Kankuro’s chin. Katana waves away the temporary dizziness with a blink, and meets the Suna shinobi’s stunned expression with a sour look.

“Katana-chan!” Naruto’s protest gets ignored.

“Thought you weren’t gonna help,” Kankuro hisses at her, grinning through his shock.

Katana grips her sword harder, presses it closer to his neck. From the corner of her eye, she catches the Suna girl—Temari, her name is Temari—tensing up at the possibility of an actual fight breaking out, and Katana forces herself to relax. No good can come out of her losing her temper, either. “You were going to break a bone with that kick,” she grounds out instead and makes a show of slowly backing a step away. “Please let him go.”

Surprisingly enough, Kankuro listens.

He does something with his hand, what looks like a mere twitch of his fingers, and Katana hears Naruto tumbling down with a dull thud as he’s released. Kankuro takes a careful step back, distancing himself from the sharp blade of Katana’s sword. He smirks again. “So this is how Konoha genin are.” The vicious interest in his voice is enough to put anyone on edge.

“You mean, stronger than you?”

Katana hears Sasuke’s voice before she registers his presence. A glance upward reveals him standing on a tree branch that looms above them as he stares icily down at the two Suna shinobi. The sound of someone running from behind Katana follows suit—when Katana glances back, it’s to the sight of Sakura helping Naruto up and shooing the kids away from the scene, her green eyes wary as they take in the situation.

“Oh, look,” Kankuro snorts. “They’ve multiplied.”

His teammate seems to be the more logical out of the two of them. She frowns at their growing number and takes a deliberately slow step towards Kankuro. “We don’t want any trouble,” Temari tells them curtly. “We’re just here for the Chuunin Exams.”

“Oh yeah?” Naruto demands, fists balled by his sides as he gears up to argue. “Why’d he pick on Konohamaru, then? Seems like he was asking for a fight.”

Sakura hisses through her teeth. “Stop it, Naruto.”

“What if I was, _twerp_?” Kankuro snaps, and the tension in the air spikes up once again. He whips out the bandaged thing that was placed on his back, and bared out in the open, it looks uncomfortably like a mummified corpse. “You gonna give me one?”

Katana shifts her weight on her feet to a fighting stance. Up above, Sasuke holds his kunai one hand, eyes never leaving Kankuro’s form, and from behind Katana, Sakura does the same as Naruto raises his fists.

“Oi,” Temari barks out in alarm, “don’t—“

“Kankuro.”

The deep voice rings out in a low warning and makes every one of them freeze.

Katana cranes her head up, just like the rest of them do, and her eyes fall on the boy with the blood-red hair and sea green eyes, standing upside down on the same branch Sasuke is on. _Oh._ Her breath rushes out of her in an odd moment as she stares, transfixed. _It’s him._ Distractedly, she knows he’s talking—his mouth is moving, eyes pinned stonily at Kankuro as the other boy stammers in his haste to explain himself, Temari’s body language next to him all but screaming terror with her hands open in a placating gesture.

Katana isn’t stupid.

She knows the taste of fear, knows how it sits on the back of your tongue and sticks there like icy venom, is all too familiar with the way it prickles on the skin at the back of your neck like a guillotine hanging above you. Katana can feel it now, among her teammates, in between the two Suna genin. The color of his hair must be a warning sign, after all, hissing of a danger that’s not to be messed with.

Katana sees all of this, feels all of this, and yet, _and yet—_

The boy crumbles into dust, into shifting sand. Reappears in the middle of Temari and Kankuro, his back to them, and says in a low monotone, “We’re not here to waste time. Let’s go.”

“Wait.”

She’s almost surprised that the voice doesn’t come from her. It comes from Sasuke instead, who drops down to join them on the ground, narrowed eyes and scowl fixed on the redhead. He stands next to Katana with his fists clenched. “You, with the gourd,” he calls out sharply, “what’s your name?”

The boy turns, face blank of any emotion. “Sabaku no Gaara,” he says, and steps to face them properly. “I’m curious about you as well. Who are you?”

Sasuke’s mouth twists into a dark smile. “Uchiha Sasuke.”

Katana watches them size each other up wordlessly, and catches the exact moment his eyes—Gaara’s eyes, slide to her. “You,” he drones out, his eyes narrowing in some unreadable expression. He takes a daunting step forward, looking at her like she’s a target, and everyone else tenses up around them. Naruto makes a noise of alarm somewhere from behind. “I remember you.”

“From last week,” Katana supplies, lowering her sword back down to her side, and thinks numbly, _I should be afraid. I should be terrified._ But it’s familiar, comforting almost, this surge of raw power washing over her. The voice in her mind hisses, and she pushes it down with practiced ease. “We passed each other on the street.”

Gaara takes another step forward. Sand particles dance in the air around him and crawl to the ground, closing in the distance between them to curl around Katana’s ankle. There’s a flash of discomfort as the sand gives a brief squeeze to the limb in its grasp. Like a challenge.

Like a threat.

“Your name?” Gaara asks.

“Katana,” she says, and grey eyes flicker up to stare into sea foam. “Hatake Katana.”

There’s silence between them as Gaara looks back unflinchingly, almost as if he’s searching for something in her eyes that he can’t seem to find. It’s odd, but Katana lets him, and lets her own curiosity bleed out from her expression. _What are you_ , she wonders, and ignores the darkness within as it whispers. _Why do you feel—_

 ** _Like us,_** the voice murmurs, ** _like us, look at his eyes, he calls for blood like us—_**

“HEY!” Naruto yells.

The trance breaks, and Katana blinks.

The sand slithers away as Gaara turns his glare on the blonde boy. “What?”

“Aren’t you gonna ask my name?” Naruto asks, annoyed, and chokes on his words when Gaara turns his back on him without warning. “O-Oi, you asshole!”

“Not interested,” Gaara says as a matter-of-factly and then he’s leaping away, his teammates following behind him with nothing more than a lingering glance at Katana and her team.

Katana stares at them long after they disappear from view. She takes a deep breath and notices just how it shudders inside her lungs—it’s as if she hadn’t been breathing the whole time Gaara was there. _What the hell_ , she thinks, mind unusually muddled. Katana frowns and dismisses the thought with a shake of her head. “Everyone alrigh—“

Sakura’s hand collides against the back of her head. Loudly.

It feels like a particularly violent wake-up call.

“Sakura-chan!” Naruto wails in horror.

“Are you crazy?” Sakura roars as Katana presses down on the offended area, wincing in pain. She glances up at Sakura to find the girl red-faced in anger, eyes set ablaze. Her volume is turned up to the highest setting as she shouts, “Were you trying to get yourself killed? I thought you were the normal one out of all of us!”

Sasuke scowls by the side. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Not now, Sasuke-kun,” Sakura snaps at him, and when Sakura looks back, Katana sees the fright that’s buried deep beyond her outrage. “And I’m not done with you! What were you _even thinking_ —“

“I’m sorry,” Katana stammers out, flustered in the face of Sakura’s wrath. She’s not normally the one at the receiving end of it, and now that she is, she regrets having done the things that put her there. Katana puts her hands up in a surrendering gesture. “I didn’t—I wasn’t thinking. You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“I swear,” Sakura sighs in aggravation, brushing her hair back, but the anger loses its hold on her voice little by little. “You hot-blooded idiots are going to get us all killed one day.” Sasuke shoots her a flat glare, Katana and Naruto exchanging sheepish glances. Sakura shakes her head with her lips pursed, and leads them into walking away from the scene. “What the hell was that guy anyway?”

“I don’t know.” Sasuke’s tone is grim, his mouth caught between a grimace and a smile as the four of them walk on the dirt path. “But I know he’s ridiculously strong. Dangerous. Even in our current rank, he’s already displayed stealth worthy of a jounin.”

“He’s just another asshole,” Naruto grunts, still irked by their interaction. “Like you, Teme.”

“Shut up, Dobe.”

Sakura bites her lower lip. “Do you think we’ll meet them again at the Chuunin Exams?”

“That’s what they’re here for, aren’t they?” Sasuke smirks. “I almost look forward to it.”

“Let’s not wish for bad things, Sasuke-kun.”

Katana lets her teammates walk ahead of her, lets the sound of their voices lull her into a sense of calm and their footsteps guide her as she gets pulled deep into her thoughts once more. _Like us,_ the voice had said. _He calls for blood like us._ Katana wonders if it should mean something, or if it’s simply one of those nonsensical, foreboding things that the voice in her head likes to murmur every now and then to bother her. For weeks, it’s been silent, dormant and lying in wait. And now that she’s met him— _Gaara,_ she reminds herself, _that’s his name_ —it’s almost as if the darkness has been pulled once more into the surface, hissing in glee.

They part ways with Sasuke and Sakura once the road splits into an intersection and then Naruto’s hand on her elbow breaks her from her reverie. Katana looks at him, tries for a smile and fails, and the attempt causes Naruto to frown all the more.

“So he’s the boy you met,” Naruto starts, voice quiet for once. “He’s dangerous, Katana-chan.”

Katana swallows. “I know. Tou-san will get worried.”

“He doesn’t have to be, if we don’t tell him.”

Naruto doesn’t look pleased at his own offer, but Katana nods anyway. “Thank you,” she whispers, and then, hesitantly, “Naruto, is it just me or did he feel—“

“Familiar?” Naruto breathes out. His blue eyes are stormy with apprehension as they stare at the path ahead. “Yeah, Katana-chan. I think it’s bad news. He feels a little bit like me, and a lot like you when you’re angry.”

Katana looks down. The dread that she should have felt earlier makes itself known now. “I thought so.”

The walk home is silent, after that.

…

Gaara does not sleep.

He does not sleep, does not sleep, does not sleep—no matter the hum of the wind outside. No matter the silence that stretches on and on. No matter the lullaby of the beast in his head, a hissing, grating noise he has long since gotten used to.

Instead, Gaara sinks his fingers into the yielding grains of sand— _how long has it been since he’s sunk his fingers into giving, rotting flesh, how long since he’s painted his hands with blood, it’s been too long, too long_ —and turns over a curious name around his mouth. Over and over and over, until it loses its meaning from repetition, until it’s nothing more than garbled noise making his brain hurt. When he blinks, he can see it again like it’s painted on the back of his eyes.

The sword by her side, blade glinting silver in the late afternoon sun, fingers curled securely around the hilt. Dark skin covered by a grey yukata, like ashes on the forest earth. Darker hair, tumbling down in curtains. The bridge of her nose. The line of her mouth. The circumference of her ankle inside the sand.

Her eyes.

Piercing like jagged steel, the color of a brewing storm.

Her eyes.

Unblinking. Unflinching. Unabashed. She stares at him like she’s looking into his hollow bones, into his wretched soul, into the darkness inside and the beast within, stares and does nothing else but breathe like she’s seen it all before.

Her eyes—

—unafraid.

 _Hatake Katana._ Gaara clenches his fist, and the sand hisses as it escapes. _What are you?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took 10 chapters of wait but my BOY GAARA is finally here! I struggled a bit with his characterization as a genin, but I hope I wrote him decently in the end.
> 
> Thank you for the all lovely feedback in the previous chapter, guys! Your comments make my days brighter and I always look forward to hearing what you think! I hope you enjoy this chapter update as well, and don't hesitate to scream at me in the comments section. <3


	11. Chuunin exams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Chuunin Selection Exams is—
> 
> “—insane,” Sakura hisses.
> 
> There is no other word for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for disturbing and violent imagery (because of a certain snake man). This chapter is rather fight-scene heavy.

 

They garner two sorts of looks as soon as they take a step inside the Academy grounds—wide-eyed glances of horrified disbelief and narrowed, cutting stares of disgusted suspicion. Neither of them is kind, piercing like needles on the back of Katana’s neck with each step she takes forward.

“It’s because of my awesomeness,” Naruto declares, with a grin that lacks its usual brightness. The way he looks at her is telling and for once, it doesn’t make Katana feel any better.

“It’s because I’m the last Uchiha,” Sasuke snaps next, as they climb up the stairs and the looks follow them like judgment hanging over their heads. He leads them away from a crowd that’s gathering over the wrong room because of a well-placed genjutsu. “Don’t mind it.”

By her side, Sakura bites her lips. Try as she might, her next smile comes out fragile. “Ne, Katana-chan—“

“Are there _four of them_?”

“That’s a four-man team. I didn’t know—“

“—that’s allowed? Seems unfair—“

“—a bigger target. We should take them out—“

“—first. That’s dangerous—“

Katana resists the urge to cower down. Walks with her jaw clenched and her eyes staring straight ahead. Lets the whispers be nothing more than poison sliding off her skin. Nothing good will come out of making herself seem smaller—it will only paint a larger target on their backs, having everyone else assume that she’s weak-hearted, that there’s a weak link in the group. But her footsteps falter the longer they walk the hallways, the more heads turn to stare at them, and soon she’s lagging behind, letting her teammates walk ahead.

 _Distance is good,_ she tells herself, unconvincingly, _distance will lessen the suspicions, it’ll lessen the danger, let them think I’m on my own—_

It’s Sasuke who grabs her wrist, to her surprise.

“Don’t be _stupid_ ,” he bites out at her, dark eyes flashing as he yanks her forward to match their steps. Sakura takes her other hand and holds it securely in her grip, unwilling to let Katana go despite the way she steels herself visibly against the murmurs of the crowd around them. They’re absolute idiots, the three of them, Katana decides breathlessly, as Naruto moves to flank her side.

“We’re making a scene,” Katana says and not one of them listens. “They think we’re threats—“

“Good,” Sasuke cuts in sharply. “Let them be warned that we are.”

“Let them stew inside their heads,” Sakura whispers, gears turning in her brilliant mind, and this time her voice does not crack. “Let them think we’re stronger.”

“Let them come.” Naruto grins beside Katana, a blinding, burning thing that promises trouble. “We’ll kick their asses, ‘ttebayo.”

They push open the double doors and enter the testing room.

Together.

…

The Chuunin Selection Exams is—

“—insane,” Sakura hisses.

There is no other word for it.

The testing room does not look like a testing room—it looks like a mockery of a battlefield instead, more kunai and deadly weapons and glaring looks combined than there are actual desks to write on. There are shinobi no matter where Katana’s eyes land on and the place is a mess of a hundred different chakras all competing to overpower one another. Naruto opens his mouth, and the dark hand that whips up to clamp down on it is almost automatic.

“Don’t,” Katana tells him in a low warning, nudging him gently to the side where they can stay out of everyone else’s line of sight. It’s a difficult feat to accomplish—Naruto is wearing a screaming orange, Sakura a bright red, and Sasuke’s shirt has a dreadfully visible Uchiha clan sign at the back—but they manage to shake off most of the looks when they reach a quiet corner. Given Team 7’s nature, the silence doesn’t last for long, and Katana lets out a sigh just as Sasuke whirls to glare at Naruto.

“Were you just about to shout our presence, dobe?”

“Shut up, teme, I was excited—“

“Boys,” Sakura scolds, “ _boys—_ “

And then someone very pretty and very blonde jumps on Sasuke’s back, cutting off whatever he’s going to say next with a squeal of, “Sasuke-kuuuun!”

Katana hangs her head, sagging against the wall in defeat even as Shikamaru and Choji join her side.

They watch by the side lines as an argument breaks out between Ino and Sakura, with Sasuke and Naruto in the middle of it—Sasuke looking terribly uncomfortable, Naruto utterly confused. Team 8 arrives just before the fight can turn violent, Inuzuka Kiba’s boisterous posturing cutting off Sakura and Ino’s exchanged insults. Hyuuga Hinata trails behind him, red-faced and in the brink of fainting. Aburame Shino takes one look at the situation, and then goes to join Katana and the rest who have their backs plastered against the wall in an attempt to turn invisible.

“We’ve huddled together like clueless sheep,” Shikamaru mutters under his breath. He casts a despondent glance at their groups that Katana feels down to her bones, and Katana tries not to let it show on her face. “They’re gonna butcher us alive in these exams.”

“Butchered sheep,” Choji mumbles distractedly, snacking on a bag of potato chips, “Lamb chops.”

“On the contrary,” Shino offers, hushed, “it may seem like we’re presenting a united front in representing our village. Like an intimidation tactic.”

Shikamaru snorts. “I don’t think any of us look like they can pull off an intimidation tactic.”

“We have to split up,” Katana tells them as she pushes herself off the wall, grimacing at someone’s approach. Shikamaru’s gaze follows hers and lands on an older genin with glasses. He frowns as well. “We’re getting too much attention.”

“You guys best keep it down.” They overhear the genin tell their teammates, voice gentle, smile warm. He looks downright normal, and it sets Katana’s nerves on fire—no shinobi would ever look that harmless unless it was on purpose. “Rookies, right? Let me show you something cool.”

“Friendly guy,” Shikamaru notes dryly at Katana’s glare. The speed of his movements as he stands betrays his calm tone. “Too friendly.”

The newcomer introduces himself as Yakushi Kabuto. That’s as far as his introduction can go because Shikamaru comes over not a second later, dragging Ino away by the wrist while his other hand hauls Choji along, Ino’s protests dying on her lips with one look from the Nara. Shino does the same, herding his team somewhere else with nothing more than a whisper. Katana stalks forward with a firm grip on the hilt of her sword, looming over her teammates’ crouched forms, and Kabuto glances up at her from where he’s been laying down what looks like cards on the floor.

Naruto tilts his head up to smile brightly at her. “Look, Katana-chan! He’s got all sorts of info—“

“We’re going,” Katana informs them, levelling Sasuke’s narrow-eyed head turn with an even look. “It’s better if we find seats before the proctor arrives.”

“Right.” Sakura blinks at her. She pulls both boys up with her as she stands, pushing them into walking and leaving no room for arguments. Naruto compiles easily. Even Sasuke goes with it, if a little grudging in his step, and Katana’s spine loses some of its tension. “Come on, Katana-chan.”

“Kabuto-san, was it?” Katana asks, grey eyes flickering up to the older teen. He gives her a careful nod and a tight-lipped smile. Katana smiles back, jaw clenched, and turns to join her team. “It was nice meeting you.”

…

“You don’t trust him,” Sasuke murmurs next to her once the proctor arrives and they’re all sat down. Naruto is on the seat behind them, jittery at the thought of a paper exam, and Sakura is in front, completely at ease. “That Kabuto guy.”

“I don’t.” Katana doesn’t look at him as she speaks. “Did you?”

Sasuke’s grimace is clear in his voice. “Not for a second.”

…

They pass the first test, and Katana learns with a hint of alarm that Sasuke has the Sharingan. She experienced it up-close and personal, too, Sasuke having trapped her and Naruto in a genjutsu that made the answers to the test seem like they were written in the air, right after he’d copied the movements of Sakura’s arm as she wrote. The first nine questions were answered quickly after that, and though the tenth question proved to be some sort of manipulative mind game, Naruto’s impassioned speech had taken care of any doubts their team may have had—or any doubts the other remaining test takers may have had, for that matter.

“Since when?” Katana demands at him as soon as they exit the Academy, making all three of her teammates turn to her. “Since when did you have the Sharingan?”

“Since Wave, when we fought Haku,” Sasuke answers, scowling at her. “How do you _not_ know?”

“How was I supposed to know?” Katana shoots back, still unnerved at this sudden revelation. “No one told me, even after I fought Zabuza.”

Sasuke’s mouth drops open in an incredulous expression. “You _fought Zabuza_?”

Sakura laughs by the side. Naruto shakes his head at them in mock dismay as they walk home. “Man, you two don’t know _anything_.”

…

Kakashi pats their heads proudly when they get home.

Embarrassment makes Katana’s face heat up—she hardly did anything to pass, after all, it had been her teammates who did the work—but she accepts it with a small smile that grows into a laugh when she catches Naruto’s ridiculously smug expression.

“It’s Sakura and Sasuke who you need to be proud of,” she tells Kakashi later as they watch the sunset from the deck, Naruto curled up and snoring at Kakashi’s other side,  probably exhausted from the anxiety of taking a written exam. Above them, the sky turns orange, and then pink, and then violet. It’s beautiful. “They were brilliant.”

“Were they?” Kakashi hums.

“Yeah,” she whispers. “You should give them a pat in the head, next time.”

“Maa, I’ll try, Kat-chan, but you know Sasuke might cut my fingers off.”

Katana bites back a grin. She wishes, a little naively, that the next exams will be just as easy, too.

…

_Day 1_

They get a Heaven scroll in exchange of their signed waivers, and then the Konoha shinobi at the table shoos them out of the makeshift tent, calling out for the next team.

Sasuke pockets it in his kunai pouch, and then out the four of them go, into the open clearing where tension runs high. It’s a different kind of tension, too—heavier, suffocating in its weight. Unlike yesterday’s exam which only lasted for hours, the second test is supposed to last for nearly a week within the Forest of Death and requires them to steal scrolls from other teams in an anything-goes battlefield before reporting at the tower in the middle of the forest.

Half the participating teams will be eliminated, the proctor Anko-san had said. More than half, if some of them are a little bloodthirsty.

Two teams had backed out from the exam after her declaration.

Ten minutes before the test officially starts, Katana makes the decision to approach the proctor who stands a quiet distance away from the crowd, much to her team’s confusion. Anko-san takes one look at her before her face splits into a sharp grin, and then she’s pulling Katana into a one-armed hug that feels more like a chokehold.

“Hatake’s brat,” Anko-san greets with a bark of laughter, ruffling Katana’s hair none too gently. “Didn’t think your dad would let you join in on this game of possible death.”

“I’m older now,” Katana says, smiling a little. She holds on to Anko-san’s arm until the woman lets her go. “I think Tou-san is less worried.”

“Kakashi? Less worried?” Anko-san snorts in amusement. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

The timer rings out, startling in the midst of the silence—a dangerous thing, with so many shinobi around and so little composure to keep things calm among them. A few of the genin curse out loud. Fewer still, draw their weapons. Katana thinks it’s a fortunate thing that those are the only reactions.

Anko-san grins dangerously, a wicked gleam in her eyes. “You better get going, kid.”

“Okay. Thank you, Anko-san.” Katana bows, and then turns to walk back to her teammates.

“Oh, and kid?”

Katana stops, glancing back just in time to see the corners of Anko-san’s mouth soften.

“Come back in one piece. We wouldn’t want your dad to come after me.”

Katana nods. “Yes, Anko-san.”

…

They break out into a run as soon as Gate 12 opens, weaving their way around thick familiar foliage and trees the sizes of behemoths and leaping from one branch to the other, well above the forest floor as all respectable Konoha shinobi do. The first thing Katana notices in the forest is its silence—it holds an ancient sort of tranquillity, the moss growing on the bark of trees looking older than all their ages combined, and the place is all the more dangerous for its quiet years. It makes all of them wary enough to be mindful of where they step despite the pace at which they travel, and none of them dare disturb the hush that envelops the trees, not even Naruto.

They run for half a day, as they’d all agreed upon beforehand. Sasuke calls for a halt in their movements just as the afternoon sun prepares to sink down from the horizon, scanning their immediate area with his active Sharingan when they come to a stop behind him.

“We’re clear,” he says, breaking the silence for the first time, and turns to look at them. “Let’s stay here for the night.”

“Here?” Sakura asks, flabbergasted. She sends a pointed look down on the moss-covered branch they’re standing on, barely wide enough to support their feet. Naruto nods rapidly in agreement, crossing his arms and scowling at Sasuke, and Katana blinks in confusion.

Sasuke rolls his eyes at their stares and promptly points to the side of the tree. Katana turns and her eyebrows jump in surprise at the cavernous hole that’s carved into the wood, smelling of the decaying leaves that carpet its floor, like an abandoned nest of some giant animal. It looks big enough to house all four of them, if they crouched and squeezed in.

“Nice find, Teme,” Naruto whisper-shouts, bright blue eyes wide in awe as they take in the nook.

“Good job, Sasuke-kun,” Sakura praises, smiling a little shyly just before she turns to their potential hideout and her expression morphs into determined focus, delegating their tasks in a low voice. “I’ll set up camp and put up a genjutsu to hide us away. Naruto, cover our trail and make sure to lay down false leads so they can’t trace us. Sasuke-kun, please leave the scroll with me and put down traps. Katana-chan will scout the nearby areas for possible enemies. You come back here within two hours,” she tells them with a quick glance around, biting her lip, “and I’ll ask a question before I let you in.”

All three of them nod in grim understanding, and the creases in Sakura’s face smooth out. “Let’s go.”

They leap away in separate directions to do as Sakura has tasked them.

Later, they converge back at the hideout nearly at the same time, Katana the last to arrive, wearing only her black shirt with yukata off and clutched around her grip instead as a makeshift knapsack. Sasuke and Naruto glance back from where they were about to disappear into the nook and in front of her, Sakura raises her kunai defensively.

“What’s that?”

Katana lifts her hands up in a peaceful gesture. “Berries. Something to eat other than emergency rations. What’s the question, Sakura?”

Sakura shifts on her feet. “What does Sensei’s face look like?”

Katana pauses. Blinks. Purses her lips slowly, refusing a smile. “No,” she says.

Naruto laughs, Sasuke following suit with a smirk, and Sakura grins back in relief. Her pink-haired teammate drops the kunai back down to her side. “Welcome back, Katana-chan.”

Katana shakes her head at them even as she presents the berries and walks forward. “All of you are terrible,” she says, and thinks, _we’re going be just fine_.

…

_Day 2_

She wakes up during Sasuke’s watch and opens her eyes to the darkness.

Naruto and Sakura are still fast asleep, curled towards one another with even breaths, and Sasuke’s back is an unmoving figure at the entrance of their hideout. Nothing’s amiss, at least not obviously, but Katana clears her throat anyway as to not startle Sasuke too badly when she finally moves to his side.

“Sasuke?” Katana murmurs, careful not to wake anyone else. “Everything oka—“

His hand moves to stop her.

“Listen,” Sasuke hisses. His voice is barely an exhale through clenched teeth, and when Katana glances at his face, she sees his eyes red and swirling. “Do you hear that?”

Katana strains her ears.

There’s nothing to hear at the entrance but the rustle of the leaves and the howl of the cold wind and the hiss of a warm breath—

Katana freezes. Sasuke draws his kunai, snapping, “Wake them up!”

“Naruto, Sakura,” Katana barks out, scrambling for her own weapon. “Wake—“ She makes the mistake of looking back. A giant reptilian eye stares at them from the entrance, pinning Sasuke in place, and Katana loses her breath. “—up.”

The beast opens its mouth and crashes into their tree.

…

Sakura is shrieking.

Sakura is shrieking and shrieking and shrieking in a volume that can wake the whole forest up and Katana cannot stop her, cannot even begin to blame her for it because there is a snake the size of the Hokage Tower looming over them as if wondering how full they will make it if it had them as a meal, and Sasuke is still frozen and Katana does not breathe.

From the corner of her eye, she sees Naruto make the hand seal for a Kage Bunshin and Katana chokes down on her own building scream, “Don’t—!“

Naruto and his army of clones run towards the freak of nature, but not before yelling at them, “Stand up and fight, you cowards!”

…

The snake falls dead in a fountain of blood and scorching flesh.

Sasuke is reeling back, smoke escaping his mouth from the _Katon no Jutsu_ , Katana behind him with blood and guts coating the entirety of her front from where she’d stabbed and sliced its stomach open. Not far away from them, Sakura and Naruto stand, both of them heaving heavy breaths after having rained down kunai and shuriken at the monster.

“Is it over?” Sakura asks, trembling from the left over adrenaline. Something that looks like an intestine is caught in her pink hair. “Someone tell me it’s over.”

Naruto opens his mouth, to speak, to comfort, to cheer—

—and he stops abruptly, because it’s then that the scales on the snake’s head splits open like morbid, bloody petals and a person with long hair emerges from the middle, licking brain matter from their lips with an abnormally long tongue. The shinobi lifts their head up and killing intent spreads across the forest with the force of a dam breaking open.

The four of them freeze—Sakura’s breath hitches in fear, Naruto’s blue eyes wide and unblinking in a terror-stricken expression, and Sasuke’s knees threaten to buckle from underneath him. Katana’s fingers are stiff, and it takes all of her willpower to do a hand seal.

“Kai,” Katana croaks out, wide eyes trained on the disturbing sight that should not and cannot be real. Killing intent this intense surely wasn’t something any genin could do. _This cannot be real, this isn’t possible._ “Kai!”

No illusion breaks, and the nightmare unfolding in front of them does not shatter. Sick horror pools into the base of Katana’s stomach. This—whatever this is—is very much happening.

The shinobi laughs slowly. It sounds like a man’s laugh, warped and rasping, and when he speaks, he addresses only one of them. “You’ve made such interesting friends, Sasuke-kun.”

“Who are you?” Sasuke breathes out.

The stranger grins, stretching too thin, too wide across his face. He looks too much like the snake they had just slaughtered. “Call me Orochimaru.”

…

Katana had only heard of him once before, this name mentioned in passing during Academy lessons.

Orochimaru of the Sannin. Student to the Third Hokage, a legend. A genius. A traitor.

 _A psychopath_ , Katana chokes inwardly and then she’s forcing her legs to move because Orochimaru charges towards Sasuke in breakneck speed, moving faster than anyone should ever be able to, and Sasuke is still frozen, Sasuke will die if he doesn’t _move, Sasuke will die—_

—Katana shoves him out of the way, raising her sword just in time to counter the kunai that’s poised to stab her in the eye. It’s too close, the blade is so close it can cut through the fear gripping her heart— ** _would you let him hurt us, would you let him act with such insolence_** —and in her next blink, Katana’s eyes flash gold, and then black. She pushes back with a trembling snarl, half-frenzied, half-afraid as she dislodges the clash of their blades and swings down on his arm.

He disappears in a flash, substituting himself with a log at the last second, and then skids a distance away from them.

“ _Oh_.” Orochimaru’s tone makes her hackles rise. He smiles a slow grin at her, reptilian eyes gleaming in pleasant surprise. “Oh, I see. This makes things very interesting indeed. The question is, how did you survive her?”

“Survive who?” Even Katana is shocked that she has enough courage left to talk. But there is black in her eyes and gold in her heart, and it is difficult to feel fear when there is such fury coursing through her body, taking over her senses, taking over her thoughts. “What are you talking about?”

Orochimaru charges again.

She meets him in the middle with bared teeth, clashing with him once more, and this time, he bares his fangs at her as well. “Well _done_ ,” he laughs, breathless with delight as Katana roars her anger, dodging each of her attempts to slice him in half. “You must be her greatest creation yet.”

His words cause something in her to falter, and all the air rushes out of Katana’s lungs. Her black eyes flicker back to grey, and that is all it takes for Orochimaru to kick her down easily, sending her crashing through the dirt, jagged rocks cutting her skin open. Her sword tumbles out of her grip, far away from her reach. Orochimaru walks to where she is, and distantly, Katana thinks she hears someone scream her name.

_Isn’t she wonderful, Stepmother laughs and laughs and laughs, isn’t she my greatest creation yet?_

“You’re her handiwork, aren’t you?” Orochimaru looks at her, entirely too gleeful with his discovery. He presses a foot down on her neck before she can stop it, and Katana can’t breathe. There’s moss and blood in her mouth, ice in her veins, and what seems like the weight of the world crushing down on her windpipe. “Tamiko the Witch. I never thought I’d live to see the day she’d succeed with her insanity. But I digress,” he sighs, “you’re not the one I’m interested in—”

“ _Shut up_ ,” Naruto roars, enraged, and runs for Orochimaru’s back.

The Sannin twists, catches Naruto mid-air by the neck with nothing more than a smirk. “Unfortunately, I’m not interested in you either, Kyuubi _jinchuuriki_.” Orochimaru channels visible chakra to his fingertips and then slams a hand against Naruto’s stomach that has him choking, face twisting in agony, and when the fight goes out of him, Naruto gets tossed to the side like a ragdoll.

A sickening _crack_ echoes throughout the battlefield when he lands.

“N-No!” Katana shouts brokenly, clenching her teeth. She thrashes underneath Orochimaru’s foot with violent desperation, clawing at his leg. Rage burns in her blood, makes her eyes flicker from black to gold to grey and it isn’t enough, she’s not strong enough against him, none of them are—“You _fucking bastard!_ ”

And he’s toying with them—he’s toying with all of them like they’re insects crawling on the ground he walks on, and he’s making them all suffer for nothing more than entertainment. Orochimaru stares at her changing eyes, grins, and _presses down_ —and Katana chokes, she can’t breathe, can’t breathe, it hurts _it_ _hurts **it hurts**_ —

**_Let me hurt him back. Let me make him bleed._ **

—her scrambling hands clamp down on his ankle, eyes swirling gold—

**_Let me tear him apart—_ **

—and she can feel it surging, this _power_ , burning flesh from the inside out—

**_Let me, let me, let me—_ **

Dark chakra bursts from her palms.

She holds down, hard, and something explodes like an overripe fruit in her hands, blood and bits of flesh and bone dripping down her fingers as Orochimaru hisses violently above her, stumbling away from her on one good foot, the other leg a bloody, mangled mess.

Katana gasps desperately for air for what seems like an eternity, eyes turning grey and body seizing in pain as she tries to reign in the wrath, tries to take hold of what remains of her flimsy control. The stench of fresh blood wafts over her face. She pushes away and turns to her front with trembling hands and knees, and then acid rises to her throat.

Katana throws up.

It’s then that Sakura’s alarmed shout rings out as Orochimaru’s neck distorts, elongates like a snake’s body and his head lashes out like a whip towards the unmoving Sasuke—his jaws open and clamp down on Sasuke’s neck, biting. Sakura dashes across the field with a kunai in her hand, gunning towards Orochimaru’s defenceless body, and stabs the blade down on his chest. Orochimaru recoils, long neck whipping out like an arm and hitting Sakura, sending her skidding down on the dirt near Sasuke’s curled up body with a dull thud.

When Katana finally raises her head, Orochimaru has vanished, and there’s only the four of them left in the blood-splattered area—Naruto lying far away, Sakura hovering weakly near Sasuke’s quivering form, and Katana, hunched over and stiff-limbed in body-shattering agony.

“Sasuke-kun.” Katana hears Sakura say, thick with emotion. “Sasuke-kun, what’s wrong?”

Sasuke opens his mouth, and screams.

…

_Day 3_

There is a moment after the attack—of sudden silence, like an echoing, ringing white noise, that takes over the forest and threatens to drive Katana insane. _Do not panic,_ she tells herself, and the voice sounds distinctly like Kakashi’s. _If you panic, nothing will happen._ She forces her mouth to swallow back the taste of blood and bile, forces her shock-still heart to restart its beat. The first rays of the dawning sun peeks through the thick canopy. Slowly, with her breath held in a vice grip inside her lungs, Katana takes stock of their situation.

Naruto is unconscious—has been unconscious since the blow to his stomach, since his body landed on the dirt and none of them had been able to catch him. Sasuke is also unconscious, choked into speechlessness by the agony and passing out after he had screamed his lungs off—Katana can still hear the ghosts of it, can still feel her skin crawl from how blood-curdling it had been. Sakura is in shock. Every inch of her, frozen. There is blood on her hands and blood on her face and bruises from head to toe.

Katana is—

Fine. Wounded, but fine.

There are slices along the length of her body and her throat is on fire with every breath but it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine—

_Do not panic._

Katana takes a stuttering inhale. Wounds can be treated, as long as they do not panic.

With a breath that shudders out of her like a prisoner escaping, Katana stumbles for their blonde teammate. She clutches Naruto’s limp body close when she finally reaches him and stares at where Sakura is kneeling on the bloody forest floor, Sasuke out cold in her thin, shaking arms. There is a wide, hollowed-out look in her green eyes as Sakura stares back.

“Katana,” she whispers in the air between them, and even that is too loud. “What do we do now?”

“We’re going to be fine,” Katana says hoarsely and doesn’t believe a word of it. “We just—we need a plan.”

What do they do now, Sakura asks, and isn’t that a painfully silly question?

There is nothing they can do.

Orochimaru is gone, and he has left them broken in the sunlight.

…

They drag themselves as far away from the battlefield as possible, and find a small cave of roots underneath a giant tree that makes for a passable emergency campsite. The water they have gets sacrificed for the wash cloths—Sasuke is burning with a dangerous fever that needs to go down, oozing slow blood from the two puncture wounds on his neck. Sakura leaves it be, unwilling to do something that might infect it, and focuses on washing and re-washing the cloth over his forehead. Next to him, Naruto remains just as unconscious, face slack and thankfully devoid of any visible pain.

Katana peeks inside the cave and watches Sakura fuss over the two boys, grimacing when Sakura finally looks up at her. “I’ve set up the traps. It isn’t as complicated as Naruto or Sasuke can make, but I think it’ll hold.”

“Thanks, Katana-chan.” Sakura gives a sad, tired smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. She takes out the Heaven scroll from her kunai pouch and hands it over. “Here.”

Katana takes it with a slow hand, frowning deeper. “Sakura,” she begins, and suddenly, the words stuck in her bruised throat. Katana looks over to where two of their teammates are stretched out on the ground, utterly helpless. Her fist clenches around the scroll. “Are you—are you sure about this?”

Sakura’s smile turns a little bitter. “You and I both know you’re the better fighter.”

“I could stay,” Katana says, hushed. “I could stay with you. We’ll be safe, then. We can wait for one of them to wake up—“

“We’ll run out of time.” Sakura shakes her head, swallowing with difficulty. Her eyes are beginning to tear up again. Katana knows she’d been crying earlier, during their walk in search of a hideout. “Katana-chan, they’ll hate us if we gave up on the mission just to protect them. Naruto will get mad. Sasuke-kun won’t forgive us for it.”

Katana grits her teeth. “I don’t care.”

“I do,” Sakura says. There’s an apology behind her words, and her lips tremble with it. “I care.”

“If he comes back,” Katana’s voice shakes, “if Orochimaru comes back—”

“I’ll fight him.” The tears make their way down to Sakura’s cheeks. She blinks them away, but her face is resolute, jaw locked in harsh determination. “I won’t freeze again. I promise you, Katana-chan, I’ll protect them.”

Katana blinks back the sting in her own eyes. “He’ll kill you.”

Sakura smiles, tight-lipped. “I know.”

Katana looks away, pins her blurring eyes to the ground. She heaves a breath, and then two, and then looks up at Sakura once more. “No,” Katana says, shaking her head, and cuts her finger open on her sword. Blood wells up from the wound, and Sakura watches with rapt attention as Katana goes over the seal pattern. “I won’t let it come to that point.”

When Katana slams her hand down to the ground, eight hounds immediately sniff protectively around her, growling at the stench of blood and clotting wounds. She lets herself sink down with them, for a moment—lets Uuhei fuss over her with a whimper, lets Bull and Urushi flank her sides and lets Pakkun place a careful paw on her hand in a silent question of concern.

“Summons,” Sakura breaths out within the cave, a smile of surprise blooming gently in her exhausted face. “I didn’t know you knew _Kuchiyose no Jutsu_.”

“Tou-san taught me, when I was little.” Katana allows herself a quick smile back before turning to the ninken. “Stay here, and help Sakura protect Naruto and Sasuke. She’ll hold down the fort while I’m gone. If there’s trouble,” she looks gravely at Pakkun, who nods back in understanding, “please get me. I’ll come back at once.”

Katana stands after giving them each a quick head pat, straightening up to watch the ninken settle in a formation around the cave, with Bull at the very entrance.

Sakura stares at her. “This will drain your chakra. You’re wounded enough as it is. If you get in trouble—”

“I won’t,” Katana says and squares her shoulders. “And if I do, I’ll find a way to deal with it.”

“Okay,” Sakura sighs. She glances at the boys before looking back up. “Come back alive, Katana-chan.”

Katana smiles grimly, and turns to leap away.

…

She runs, and she does not think.

Does not think of the weight of Naruto’s body in her arms, does not think of Sasuke’s endless screams, does not think of the tears that trail down Sakura’s face. Katana lands from branch to branch, footsteps barely there before it’s gone again, and does not think of Orochimaru breaking out of a snake’s corpse and calling her someone’s greatest creation like Katana is nothing else except someone’s sick experiment gone right.

Katana does not think of Orochimaru, nor the sound of his voice when he’d said _Tamiko the Witch._

Katana does not think of this burning rage, brimming to the surface.

Instead, she runs and runs and runs until she finds them.

Or rather, they find her—three Kusagakure shinobi share a glance of barely-contained glee at the wounded sight of her, clothes ripped and stained of blood with only a sword for defense. They’re older than Katana—much, much older, probably having been genin for years on end before they even thought of participating in these exams.

“Show us what you’ve got there, little girl,” one of them taunts. When she doesn’t react, he plucks out an Earth scroll from one of his many pockets to wave it around. Katana’s gaze zeroes in on it reflexively, and the Kusa nin’s grin turns vicious. “Looks like we’ve got a match.”

There is no time to waste.

They charge towards her, all three of them making the hand seals for _Bunshin no Jutsu_ , and the forest clearing becomes packed with clones that crowd Katana in a small circle. It’s a well-executed plan. There’s three of them and only one of her, and with the many clones faking attacks left and right and her not knowing enough of a difference to fall for them, she’s bound to drop during the fight—

—except she has too much anger in her bones to mind the exhaustion clinging to them, and every glance of a kunai blade against her skin and every blow landed from among the illusions has her snarling lower and lower, control slipping away in the hurricane of dark whispers in her head. **_Let me out_** , it hisses in her mind, an earth-shattering thing, **_let me out!_**

Her sword connects with the first solid body.

It bites deeply into a shoulder and a scream erupts from one of the Kusa genin, hysterical in agony. Several of the clones disappear. He struggles against the blade, pulling to bleed out red, and the darkness within Katana roars. She pushes the sword down further, cutting through skin, through flesh and sinew and bone—

—and he’s screaming and screaming and screaming, clutching the wound as his arm drops to the ground, detached from the rest of his body, and it’s not enough, the blood gushing out of him is not enough—

Another one of them tries to stab her in the back. Katana moves before she can think, whirls to thrust her blade forward. Crimson splatters on her face as it pierces through a stomach, and she hears the shinobi choke on blood and spit in front of her. _It’s time to stop,_ Katana tells herself uselessly, helpless to the cruel satisfaction that’s taking over her senses, _my team needs me to come back, I need to stop._

The genin she stabbed holds on tightly to the sword in his gut. She tries to pull it out from between his dying hands, slicing fingers in her movement, but his grip is iron, holding her in place as the third jumps out of the shadows and launches a barrage of kunai at her, hurtling through the air in a speed too fast to avoid. Katana lets go of the hilt and puts her arms up, jaws clenched—

—and in her next blink, sand comes up to cover her view.

The kunai knives collide harmlessly against it as the sand moves like a limb that has a mind of its own, wrapping and shifting in a cocoon around the genin that threw the blades. Katana holds her breath, anger forgotten at the display. The sight of the Kusa-nin thrashing and squirming against the grains of sand can make anyone forget what they’re supposed to be doing—it’s a terrifying thing to behold, sudden and overwhelming.

“I’ll g-give you the s-scroll!” The genin screams, begging as it crawls up his face. “Please let me go, please—!”

The cocoon seals shut, squeezes, and explodes in a mess of dirt clumps and blood.

Katana stares, stupefied, and then remembers numbly, _the scroll._

“Do you need this?”

She blinks. Turns to the side and sees the scroll unharmed, dangling by a tendril of swirling sand. Past that, a boy stands unfazed with his red hair and his sea green eyes, looking down at her. “Hatake Katana.”

Katana feels herself breathe out. “Gaara.”

 …

There had been three Kusa shinobi.

Now, there are just three bodies. One is missing an arm, lying next to another that is impaled on a sword, and not so far away, there is a mess of parts and fluids that cannot even be called a body anymore. Katana watches Gaara take it all in with an unwavering expression, as if surveying the damage Katana had caused, before his eyes fall on her.

“You killed them,” he says, like an accusation.

Katana frowns, stopping in the middle of pulling out her sword from one of the corpses. “You killed one, too,” she points out as she yanks her weapon back, and ties it securely back to her hip.

Gaara looks evenly at her. The scroll between them moves, distracting Katana for a second as the sand pulls back to the gourd behind Gaara and drops the scroll on his open hand. “I’ve killed plenty,” is what Gaara remarks, as if that makes for a perfectly valid excuse. Sand pours out of his gourd then, looking like a heavy pouch. When it parts, it reveals a number of Earth and Heaven scrolls hidden in it for safekeeping.

Katana’s mouth parts in surprise. “You’ve taken a lot of scrolls.”

“There is no rule against collecting more than two.”

“Can I have that one?”

Gaara looks down at the scroll in his hands before looking up at Katana in an unspoken question.

Katana nods. “I need it.”

Gaara blinks, and then stretches out his arm. The sand hisses around him. “Take it, then.”

 _Thank god, thank god, thank god._ Katana feels like she can fall over in relief, can burst into tears at the thought of finally coming back to Sakura and the others. As it is, she stands calmly instead, making her way over to Gaara with quiet steps as the sand swirls all around her, twisting in circles between her feet. Katana stops in front of him and reaches for the other end of the scroll. Their fingers brush against each other in the barest moments.

Despite the stiff pain in her limbs and the blood on her clothes, Katana finds herself breaking into a genuine smile, no matter how small it is. “Thank you,” she whispers as sincerely as she can, as gratefully as she can without her voice breaking. In front of her, Gaara’s eyes widen in the slightest. “I owe you one, Gaara.”

She slides the scroll out of his hand and pockets it, nodding at him for one last time before running back into the forest.

…

She had taken the scroll from him.

 _Take it then,_ Gaara had challenged, had threatened really, because surely no person would be willing to take something from him? Not when he’d just crushed a man in front of their eyes and made it rain flesh, not when he’d shown just how monstrous he can truly be. But she had stepped close, had _walked into his sand_ unafraid, and had taken the scroll from his own hand.

Hatake Katana had taken the scroll with a smile, had thanked him, and now there is an ache inside Gaara’s body that he cannot begin to explain.

One of his hands reaches up to clutch at his chest. He feels the monstrosity underneath it beat, once, twice, and with a grimace, Gaara turns away.

…

Katana returns to a battlefield full of Konoha genin, and to the sight of Sakura’s short hair. A quick glance around reveals her ninken gone, probably dispersed from the fight that took place. There are several broken trees around and a few puddles of blood and upturned boulders. For some reason, Gai-san’s students are there. Shikamaru, Choji and Ino are also in view, talking to Katana’s teammates—all three of them, as Naruto and Sasuke are finally awake.

Katana takes a stunned step forward into the light, and all of them turn to her with their weapons drawn and fists ready.

“Oh god,” Ino says as soon as the girl sees Katana, face draining of color. “She’s bathed in blood.”

Naruto’s expression falls into horror. “Katana-chan—“

“It’s not mine,” Katana says absentmindedly. It only serves to increase the tension in the air, and Gai-san’s female student pins her with a suspicious glower. “It’s not—I had to take the scroll.”

Sakura is the first one to stand up to meet her, despite Team 10’s warnings. Naruto and Sasuke trail behind her protectively, and despite everything that has happened in the last few days, it’s the sight of the three of them walking towards Katana that threatens to make her eyes water. _They’re alive,_ Katana tells herself and thins her lips to hide the way they tremble. There’s a telltale shake in her hands that Katana knows Sasuke sees.

Her team stands before her, eyes wary, and then Sakura says, “In the shinobi world, those who break the rules are scum.”

Katana allows herself a small smile. “But those who abandon their comrades are worse than scum.”

_We’re going to be just fine, after all._

…

_Day 4_

They reach the Tower in half a day’s journey and manage to open the two scrolls which turn out to be part of a Summoning seal. When the smoke dispels, a familiar set of gloved hands pull all of them in against a solid chest, and when Katana looks up, there’s Kakashi staring down at them with one visible eye creased in concern.

“Yo,” Kakashi says, and three of them promptly burst into tears.

“Tou-san,” Katana breathes out, voice breaking. She presses her face against his side. “Tou-san.”

“Sensei!” Sakura wails, inconsolable as she sobs her heartache and exhaustion on Kakashi’s flak vest. “Sensei, my _hair—_ “

“We were almost eaten,” Naruto rambles through his sobs, glued to their sensei’s other side, “and there was a giant snake, and Teme wasn’t _moving—_ “

“ _My_ _hair_ , they grabbed my hair and told me they’d kill Naruto and Sasuke-kun—“

“Orochimaru of the Sannin attacked us,” Sasuke whispers through his teammates’ loud voices, and Katana blinks the tears out of her sight to see him forcing back his own eyes from watering. “And he did something to me.”

“Let me see.” Kakashi peers at Sasuke’s neck when the boy pulls back his collar and blinks at what he sees there. He takes a deep breath, and says, “Okay.”

“Okay?” Sasuke asks with a frown.

“Yes,” Kakashi tells him. “You’re going to be okay. We’ll make you be okay again.”

“Oh.” Sasuke bites down on his lip, clenching his fists. The first tear makes it down his face, and Kakashi motions him to join the pile. Sasuke shuffles forward until he’s in the space between Katana and Sakura, and drops his forehead on Kakashi’s chest.

“You guys are okay now,” Kakashi murmurs to them, holding them inside his arms until the tears quiet down. “It’s okay.”

It’s not okay.

Naruto has been hurt. Sakura’s face is beaten in, her face painted in bruises of purple and her hair shorn. Sasuke has been bitten by a madman who knows too many things about Katana’s past. There is gore on Katana’s clothes and someone’s dead skin underneath her nails and more blood on her hands that she has ever wanted to spill. She has killed people who could have been spared and has let her control slip more times than it ever should.

But there is Kakashi. There is Sakura sobbing, and Naruto pushing down hiccups, and Sasuke pretending not to cry, and all of them are breathing.

All of them are alive despite everything and for now, that’s enough.

It’s enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Orochimaru should come with a "Body Horror" warning tag, I swear. On the bright side, I got to write Gaara again! There'll be more scenes with him as the story progresses and I look forward to writing it for you guys. <3 Thank you so much for your constant show of support! As always, don't hesitate to leave a comment and tell me what you think! ^_^


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